By Tim Mastro

LEWES — Delmar High hit the reset button on its football season Friday night.

The Wildcats held on to win at Cape Henlopen High 28-21, pushing their record back to .500. Delmar improved to 2-2 while the Vikings dropped to 0-5 overall.

Delmar coach Dave Hearn said he spoke with his team beforehand about Friday’s game being the start of a new season. The Wildcats struggled to get going so far with just one scrimmage over the summer, a shutout loss at Wilmington Friends to open the season before a win against Red Lion Christian, then a no-contest game due to COVID-19 contact tracing.

“It was such an odd summer for us then to have a COVID week after playing pretty well against Red Lion, it just went to hell in a week,” Hearn said. “So I thought this is game one and we talked about that leading into it. The team wanted this a whole lot. I could tell on the bus ride over they were very focused.”

The Wildcats led by as much as 21-0 in the third quarter but Cape Henlopen made it a one-possession game twice in the fourth quarter. Delmar needed a one-yard touchdown by Trent Kemp with 4:14 remaining to keep the Vikings at bay.

All of Delmar’s touchdowns came on the ground.

“We’re all out here to win, we don’t like losing,” Kemp said. “We run hard and do everything we can at our hardest and that’s what gets it done.”

Cape Henlopen responded with a quick touchdown of their own. Hank D’Ambrogi picked out Chancler Johnson for a 43-yard touchdown throw to draw within seven with 2:27 left, setting up an onside kick as the Vikings were out of timeouts.

Cape Henlopen did recover the onside kick, but the ball only went nine yards instead of the required 10. After Kemp fought throw some would-be tacklers for a first down, the Wildcat just needed to kneel the ball to run out the clock.

“I knew they weren’t going to quit,” Hearn said of Cape Henlopen. “I saw them down by 28 against Sallies and they came within an eyelash. We knew they wouldn’t quit. They were desperate for a win, just like we were.”

Cape Henlopen’s second-half comeback attempt was aided by a one-yard touchdown rush from Jordan Baines and a 73-yard fumble recovery returned from a touchdown by Johnson.

Delmar, who was shut out 6-0 at Woodbridge in its return from its break due to COVID-19, also got rushing touchdowns from quarterback Gavin Powell, running back Jaylin Warner and running back Brandon Turner.

Powell, starting only his second career game at quarterback, led a touchdown drive in a two-minute drill situation at the end of the first half. The junior engineered a seven-play drive, covering 58 yards to score on a quarterback sneak with 44 seconds left in the second quarter.

He completed three passes, to three different receivers, and recorded a rush of 16 yards on the drive. Powell connected with Kemp on an 8-yard pass to bring Delmar to within a yard of the end zone before the quarterback finished the drive himself, plowing up the middle on a keeper.

Mark Oakley set up the first touchdown when he picked off a Cape Henlopen pass. Turner carried four times for 32 yards on the drive and earned the touchdown from three yards out as time expired in the first quarter.

Warner’s rushing touchdown was the longest for Delmar on the night, from 21 yards out which put the Wildcats on top 21-0 with 7:29 left in the third quarter.

“I thought blocked well up front and I hope the film doesn’t show me otherwise,” Hearn said. “That allowed us to do our basic game. We just ran our basic plays, didn’t do anything too fancy. Gavin threw the ball with confidence and ran with confidence. He did a really nice job. We had such a horrible week of practice prior to Woodbridge. It just looked uncoordinated. So I think we played a lot better against a good football team. I was pleased.”