11/17/2003: "Cape Hockey Team Redeems Itself"

The Cape Henlopen High School field hockey team has been, without question, the dominant program in the Henlopen Conference and one of the top teams in the state for the past nine years.

The Vikings had to be a bit shell-shocked in the past year, though, as they suffered the indignity of being the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in last year's state field hockey tournament and then lost the conference title this year to Lake Forest with three regular season defeats.

While a 12-3-1 regular season record would satisfy most schools, at Cape, that left the Vikings with something to prove, and they did just that in this year's state tournament as they reached the Final Four, including a quarterfinal triumph over Lake Forest.

Cape has won or shared 6 conference championships since 1995 and has reached the state semifinals three times in the new Millenium -- in 2000 and 2001 under coach Ruth Skoglund and in 2003 under coach Gretchen Wyshock.

During that four-year period, the Vikings have gone 64-8-3 -- a record that qualifies the Cape field hockey program as one of the great dynasties in Sussex County sports history.