LEWES — Cape Henlopen High’s primary goal was already achieved.
And as the second ticked away, the Vikings looked to accomplish their second goal for Friday night. They were able to leave the gym with both boxes checked.
Abbey Hearn scored her 1,000th career point in the final 30 seconds to highlight Cape Henlopen’s 61-40 victory over Wilmington Charter in the second round of the DIAA girls’ basketball state tournament.
“It got down to the wire there,” Hearn said with a laugh. “I wish it didn’t take that long. It’s really great to do it at home and everyone, my family can see it.”
Cape Henlopen (18-4), the tournament’s second seed, will host No. 10 Tatnall (16-6) in the quarterfinals on Monday at 7 p.m.
The Vikings had a first-round bye but were coming off a rare defeat this season. They fell to Woodbridge High in the Henlopen Conference championship game last Friday.
That loss simmered for a week.
“It was a rough week,” said Cape Henlopen coach Pat Woods. “I thought we need to respect our opponents and play every possession like it’s our last because from now on it is. Sometimes you treat the last possession of the game like everybody is locked in. Well why is that possession different than all these others? You can score the same amount of points or give up the same amount of points on any possession. So we need to take that mentality and play 100 percent on every possession and every closeout.”
The Vikings opened the game with five unanswered points and led wire-to-wire.
Morgan Mahoney drained back-to-back three-pointers in the final two minutes of the first half to spark Cape Henlopen to a 28-15 halftime advantage. Wilmington Charter only cut the deficit to single digits once in the second half.
“If we lose we go home now,” Hearn said. “We can’t underestimate anybody no matter what.”
Hearn led a strong Viking shooting performance with a game-high 19 points. Dania Cannon added 16 points while Carlin Quinn recorded the first double-double of her career with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
“When we get wide open looks, we’ll knock them down,” Woods said. “When we take contested shots, it’s difficult, just like anybody else. The reason we were shooting the ball so well is because we made the extra pass.”
Cape Henlopen reached the quarterfinals a year ago but fell to St. Elizabeth.
A win Monday would send the Vikings to their first semifinal since the 2011 tournament when they reached the finals. The semifinals and finals are scheduled for Wednesday and Friday, both at the Bob Carpenter Center on the campus of the University of Delaware.
“We want to go as far as we can,” Hearn said. “Hopefully we can win again on Monday, get to the Bob and see what happens there.”