GEORGETOWN — A tightly contested, up and down affair gave way to a blowout in the second half as Cape Henlopen overcame Sussex Academy to continue a perfect start to its girls lacrosse season Wednesday.
In a matchup of the top two ranked teams in Delaware, the Vikings (4-0) took down the Seahawks (2-2), 18-6. Cape, the state champion last spring for the 14th time in the past 15 years, has now won 22 straight games.
The visiting Vikings broke a 5-5 halftime tie with a 13-1 second half in which seven different players scored. Sophomore Ally Diehl led the way with four second-half goals and five overall.
"Moving fast, catching them off guard as much as we could on the fastbreak," Diehl said of what worked well for Cape's offense. "[Early in the game] we were kind of slowing down and we let them set up a little bit. Catching them off guard definitely worked a lot."
Diehl won the majority of draws in the second half as the Vikings turned up the pace.
"We always try to push the pace and go for the fastbreaks," Cape coach Lindsey Underwood said. "They did a better job of that in the second half than in the first half. They were a little timid in the first half."
Sussex Academy scored three goals in the game's first eight minutes and benefited from several early saves by goalkeeper Morgan Leeper. Diehl's first goal 13 seconds after a Cape timeout broke the Vikings' drought, and the first of four scores from senior Macy Steinwedel closed the deficit to 4-2 by the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, goals by Steinwedel and sophomores Amara Fruchtman and Haley Gamuciello helped even the score at five. Diehl, a regular winner at the draw circle, then scored three straight goals to start the third quarter.
"Once you start to get possession, everything builds off of that," Diehl said. "You can't really build off of not getting the ball."
Added Underwood: "She's done a great job for us. She's really coming into her own on that. She only took a couple for us last year, but she really put the work in in the offseason."
Cape junior Claire Lopez scored three goals, including the game's most crafty. In the third quarter, she received a pass a few feet in front of the goalkeeper and, with her back toward the goal, flicked a shot with her stick below hip height.
Junior Regan Best netted two goals in the fourth quarter.
