West Forsyth spring sports roundup: Softball dominates last week with four convincing wins

Published 10:25 pm Monday, April 1, 2024

The West Forsyth softball team dominated its four games last week to help it ease into this week’s spring break.

It won its four games 49-3 to improve to 12-2 overall and 7-1 in the Central Piedmont 4-A.

“That’s exactly what I told the girls (Friday), I said, ‘We’ve put ourselves where we need to be going into break,’” Coach Kevin Baity of the Titans said.

Last week started on Monday with a Central Piedmont 4-A doubleheader at Mount Tabor.

West Forsyth won both games 15-0. In the first game, West Forsyth scored 10 runs in the first and five more in the second. The game ended after three innings because of the 15-run mercy rule. In the second game, West Forsyth scored 11 runs in the first inning and four more in the second.

The Spartans fell to 2-7 overall and 2-6 in the conference.

After two days of rain, West Forsyth traveled to Walnut Cove to play South Stokes in a nonconference game. West Forsyth scored four runs in the fourth inning to help it win 5-2.

The Sauras fell to 3-8 overall.

“Even though their record doesn’t show it, South Stokes is very good,” Baity said. “You know, they had lost seven games, but their first four games were to McMichael, who’s like 12-1, ranked in the top of the state, and that Uwharrie Charter, who both of them have DI pitchers. And South Stokes did take one of them into extra innings.

“So, it was a great game for us going to a big game like East (Forsyth) that really meant something. And Meredith Casey pitched and pitched a great game.”

This past Friday night, West Forsyth played host to East Forsyth and cruised to 14-1 win.

“I knew that she (Coach Karlee Honeycutt of East Forsyth) graduated a lot,” Baity said. “So, you know, they are very inexperienced. However, they also beat Reagan earlier in the year. They beat Reagan and Reagan beat us.”

The Eagles fell to 7-4 overall and 5-2 in the conference.

“Right now, our hitters, if we face average pitching we’re going to hit it,” Baity said. “I mean I’ve got hitters from top to bottom and we’re going to hit it.”

The problem has been strikeouts. However, the Titans didn’t strike out in the Eagles game.

“Our problem is the really strong pitchers, and we still have a few that are going to hit anybody, but we’ve been striking out too much,” Baity said. “Just not putting the ball in play. And when you don’t do that, you don’t have a chance.”

West Forsyth is off this week because of spring break, but it is scheduled to return to play next Monday with a nonconference game at Hillsborough Orange (6-1).

“I think the girls need it,” Baity said of the break. “You know, most of these (players) are going to do something anyway. We’re just not doing it together.”

Girls soccer

The West Forsyth girls soccer team also had a stellar week last week with Central Piedmont 4-A wins against Reagan and Davie County.

Last Monday at home, West Forsyth scored three goals in the second half to defeat Reagan 4-2 to allow it to take sole control of the conference lead.

After the Davie County win, West Forsyth improved to 6-2-1 overall and 5-0 in the conference.

“Reagan has had a good squad the last few years,” Coach Jeffrey Williams of West Forsyth said. “We were looking forward to playing them and was excited about the outcome.”

Four different players – Abby Reutinger, Reese Williams, Ashley Johnsen and Aislynn Macguire – scored single goals for the Titans.

The Raiders fell to 7-1 overall and 3-1 in the conference.

The following night at Davie County, West Forsyth, again, had balanced offense with Milly Garcia Olmedo, Reutinger and Maguire scoring single goals.

The game was scoreless at halftime, but the Titans scored three second-half goals.

“I’d rather be balanced than not,” Williams said. “Just one person because you’re leaning on that, but we do have, we rely heavily on a few people on the attack.”

The War Eagles fell to 3-4-1 overall and 0-4-1.

After a scheduled 16 days off because of spring break this week, West Forsyth will play April 11 at home against East Forsyth in a conference game. However, the team will have voluntary workouts on Tuesday and Thursday of this week.

“It’s a (great time) to refresh and hit the reset button,” Williams said. “As long as they can semi maintain their fitness, we’ll have a couple open fields scheduled for (this) week and we’ll start practice again on Monday, and we don’t play til Thursday.”

Girls lacrosse

Last week was a see-saw week for the West Forsyth girls lacrosse team with two wins, but it also had its first loss.

Last Monday night, Bailey Fox scored six goals and Tatum Snow added five as West Forsyth routed Reagan 21-7 in a Central Piedmont 4-A game in Pfafftown.

Alivia Gurley chipped in with four goals for the Titans and Gabby Vestal added three.

The Titans led 11-5 at halftime.

“I think we played very strong against Reagan,” Coach Doug Brawley of West Forsyth said. “They’re a good team. They definitely have shown a lot of improvement, and we rose to the challenge.”

Ella Willard, Isley Rives and Chloe Harris scored two goals apiece for the Raiders (9-4, 7-2).

Two nights later in Clemmons, Charlotte Myers Park dominated the first half and raced past previous undefeated West Forsyth 18-9.

The Mustangs led 10-3 at halftime.

In the Myers Park game, Gurley led West Forsyth with five goals and Snow added three.

“We did not play our best lacrosse, but we did play well against Myers Park,” Brawley said. “And I think, learned about a lot of simple things we can improve upon before we face another team of that caliber.”

West Forsyth answered the loss the next night with a resounding 16-1 win against Glenn in a conference game in Kernersville.

Olivia McClellan led the Titans (10-1, 8-0) with five goals and Ava Yoder contributed four.

“It gave us an opportunity to rest some starters and get some underclassmen a lot of quality playing time (Thursday) night and exposed some younger players to the game of lacrosse,” Brawley said.

West Forsyth is off this week for spring break, but it returns next week with three scheduled home games – Reagan on April 9, Bishop McGuinness on April 11 in a nonconference game, and Davie County on April 12 in a conference game.

“Trying to heal our injuries and maintaining our conditioning,” Brawley said of the break.

Baseball

West Forsyth played two Central Piedmont 4-A games last week against Glenn and split the series.

In last Tuesday’s game in Clemmons, Glenn scored seven runs in the sixth inning to help it win 14-6.

“It was just a bad night from the get-go,” Coach Kevin McIntosh of the Titans said. “We came out slow, we finished slow. Glenn executed that night, and we couldn’t seem to get the hit when we needed it, and uncharacteristically, that night we struggled on the mound and playing defense, which those two things have been our strengths all year long, including Friday night’s game at Glenn.”

As McIntosh alluded, West Forsyth answered after pitcher Greyson Jones pitched a no-hitter with 13 strikeouts and one walk as it defeated Glenn 8-0 Friday night in Kernersville.

“Friday night was a great win,” McIntosh said. “We did bounce back. We played excellent defense again and got excellent pitching from Greyson Jones.”

The Bobcats fell to 6-4 overall and 4-3 in the conference.

Although this week is spring break, the West Forsyth baseball team is playing a spring-break tournament just outside of Myrtle Beach, S.C.

West Forsyth is scheduled to play four games in four days starting Tuesday. On Tuesday, it will play Socastee (S.C.), Wednesday it will play St. James (S.C.), Thursday against Penfield (N.Y.), which hasn’t played before this tournament, and Friday against West Florence (S.C.) on Friday morning.

“You know, that’s the big thing. You’ve got to get their minds focused that from I guess, the time they wake up til 4 o’clock is kind of their time,” McIntosh said. “And they’ll have time to do stuff on the beach, play Putt-Putt, do whatever it is. And then 4 o’clock is the time to kind of put back in and focus in until the 7 o’clock game, and after the ballgame until the next day.”

After the tournament, West Forsyth is scheduled to play at Parkland next Tuesday in a conference game, play host to Cornerstone Charter next Wednesday in a nonconference game, and play host to host to Parkland next Friday.