Dragons Highlight Playoff Push
BY MIKE DUPREZ
The Dispatch
When practice first started for West Davidson’s soccer team, the goals were optimistic with a touch of realism.
That’s a good approach considering the Central Carolina Conference is typically dominated by Salisbury and Ledford.
“I felt like we had a good enough team to finish third or fourth in the conference,” said West coach Chris Brown. “Then I figured we’d get a wild card bid.”
Little did Brown know what was coming.
It turns out the West coach was way too cautious. He got the “third” part right – as in the third round of the 2-A state playoffs. The Dragons (20-2) are in the midst of a record-setting season as they get set to travel to Lincolnton for a 7 p.m. Wednesday third-round matchup with North Lincoln.
“We are having a great season,” Brown said. “This is going better than I ever could have thought.”
It’s going to be a busy Tuesday and Wednesday for county prep teams. A total of 11 teams are in state playoff events – six in softball, three in baseball, two in soccer and one in tennis.
East Davidson (10-9) is also in the third round of the soccer playoffs after shocking Salisbury 2-0 on Saturday. Salisbury had swept the Eagles in the regular season, 6-2 and 6-1. East visits Shelby at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
If both West and East win, they will square off in the fourth round Saturday in Tyro.
Meanwhile, in second-round 2-A baseball playoff action Tuesday, Central Davidson hosts Surry Central and Ledford entertains Wilkes Central. In the second round of the 4-A baseball playoffs, North Davidson plays host to Crest.
All three baseball games will begin at 7 p.m.
Defending 2-A state champion Central Davidson (26-0) puts its 47-game winning streak on the line Tuesday against Forest Hills (14-11) in the first round of the softball playoffs. In other 2-A openers, Ledford (17-6) hosts North Stanly (17-6), East Davidson (11-9) goes to North Lincoln (13-11) and West Davidson (12-11) goes to West Lincoln (15-6).
North Davidson (22-3) opens the 4-A playoffs at home against Ardrey Kell (13-9) and South Davidson (18-6) visits West Wilkes (19-5) in the first round of the 1-A playoffs.
In the second round of the 2-A dual team state tennis playoffs, Lexington (12-3) hosts Shelby (8-7) at Bingham Tennis Center.
Ledford has a battle on its hands Tuesday in its quest for a fourth consecutive 2-A state golf championship at Long Leaf. The Panthers enter final round play tied with West Henderson for second place, three strokes behind leader Cardinal Gibbons.
West Davidson’s soccer team is built on a pair of attacking forwards in juniors Casey Darnell and Kristin Owens and a solid corps of defenders in Regan Treichler, Starla Koontz, Krysta Sink, Stephanie Williams and keeper Lauren Raby.
Owens leads the Dragons with 37 goals and also has 12 assists. Darnell has 35 goals and 23 assists.
The Dragons already had set a school record for wins before the playoffs began so the success wasn’t unexpected. But in beating North Stanly 3-2 in the second round, the Dragons took down a previously unbeaten team. Not only did the Dragons come from behind to win, they did not substitute.
“When our girls go on the field, they know they’re expected to be ready to play 100 minutes,” Brown said. “We’re used to it. North Stanly kept subbing people in the last 10 minutes to keep fresh and we kept coming at them.”
Although the Dragons will be the visiting team, they are favored over North Lincoln (13-7-2), a team they beat 3-1 at North Lincoln in the regular season. Brown does not expect his team to be overconfident.
“Oh, no,” he said. “We talked about that today in practice. I told them to look at what East Davidson did to Salisbury. We have to be ready to play.”
North Davidson’s baseball team is coming off a 5-0 victory over Butler in the first round and is facing a Crest team that could start a left-hander, just as Butler did.
“They’ve got two of them and they’re both sophomores, so we’ll see,” said North coach Mike Meadows. “I don’t know that much about them.”
Meadows will start senior right-hander Clay Watson on the mound. Watson, 8-2 and with a 2.00 earned run average, and senior left-hander Zach White will continue alternating starts in the playoffs.
Central Davidson (17-8) received the nice surprise of a second-round playoff game at home after Surry Central (14-9) upset Mount Pleasant in the first round.
“It’s always nice to be playing at home at this time of the year,” said Central coach Jonathan Brown. “There are a lot of advantages to playing at home. You don’t have to load up the buses and travel two hours. That makes a big difference.”
Chaz Frank, the relief hero in Central’s 9-7 win over West Stanly in the first round, will start on the mound for the Spartans. Brown’s relief plan for Tuesday?
“They’re all going to be ready,” he said.
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