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Cape Girls Stage Late Rally
By DAVID MAULL, TV Times

For two and a half quarters Thursday night, Feb. 11, 1999, everything seemed out of whack for the Cape Henlopen High School girls' basketball team.

Head coach Josette McCullough was not with the team for personal reasons, leading scorer and rebounder Jessica Witherspoon was on the bench nursing a leg injury and upset-minded Sussex Tech was leading by double digits late in the third quarter.

But after 20 sluggish minutes of play, Cape suddenly found its game and made Tech's lead evaporate with frightening quickness. By outscoring the Ravens 36-12 in the second half, Cape cruised to a 61-43 victory in Georgetown that improved its record to 11-5 in the conference and 11-8 overall.

"They just basically woke up and they came to play," said assistant coach Alvenia Reese, who ran the team in McCullough's absence. "I told them they had to control the boards, they had to get position, box out and that's what they did."

With Witherspoon sitting out most of the first half because of a calf injury, Tech dominated the boards and consistently found center Tyshia Coursey underneath for easy layups. The Ravens outrebounded the Vikings 26-14 in the first two quarters and led by as many as eight points.

The Tech lead expanded to 11 points midway through the third quarter before Witherspoon kicked her game into high gear, providing a much needed boost to the offense and the team's work on the boards.

Amazingly, Cape held the Ravens without a field in the game's final 11:55 and used a 22-0 run to take control of the game. The Vikings held a 31-16 edge on the boards in the second half.

"When we changed up defenses that seemed to kind of confuse them," Reese said.

Janelle Savage led Cape with 15 points while Witherspoon, Julie Parseghian and Lindsey Williams added 13 each. Savage scored 13 of her points in the first half while Witherspoon scored 11 of her 13 in the second.

Coursey led Tech (6-10, 6-10) with 22 points.

"I think we just played a lot better man-to-man defense," Parseghian said of Cape's second-half turnaround. "We played a lot harder, tried not to foul as much and just played a lot cleaner and a lot more aggressive."

For a while, it looked like Tech was primed for a major upset. The Ravens trailed a total of just one minute in the first half and when Coursey sank three straight layups midway through the third quarter, their lead had expanded to 41-30.

Little did anyone know Tech had scored its last field goal.

After a timeout, Cape reeled off 22 straight points to take a 52-41 lead with 5:52 remaining in the game. Witherspoon scored 11 of those points, twice converting steals into layups, putting back a missed shot and driving the lane for another score. Parseghian added a put-back and a layup while Meghan Oakes sank a baseline 3-pointer.

Tech, meanwhile, was taken completely out of its game, turning the ball over on eight straight possessions to fuel Cape's comeback. A free throw by Martha Arthur finally ended Cape's run and made it 52-42 but the Vikings outscored the Ravens 9-1 over the final five minutes.

"We went out there and just played like we know how instead of lowering ourselves down like we usually do," Parseghian said. "We kind of got down and we were like we better get up before we get way, way down."

Tech dominated the boards early in the game, racing to a 16-8 lead. With Witherspoon on the bench, the Vikings struggled in their half-court offense and were powerless to stop Coursey, who scored 10 points in the first quarter.

Cape trailed 19-14 after being outrebounded 14-3 in the opening period. Savage, however, gave her team a boost early in the second quarter, sinking two free throws and pair of long jumpers during an 8-2 run that gave the Vikings their first lead, 22-21.

But Tech ended the half on a 10-3 run and carried a 31-25 lead into halftime.

The victory improved Cape's state tournament standing as it approached the end of an up-and-down season.

"We've just had a bad season altogether. We lost a teammate early on in the season and Jessica's been out a lot with injuries and now our coach is out, so it's just been hard for us all season. We've just tried to do the best we can with what we've got," Parseghian said.

She was referring to teammate Danielle Guerin, who was killed in a car accident in late October. Guerin's No. 23 jersey is draped on the bench during games and her number is displayed in the clothing of every coach on game night.