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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

CLEMMONS — It’s been a long time coming but Clemmons Middle School finally did it. 

The girls soccer team won the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools middle-school soccer championship. In winning the championship, Brooklynn Sheldon, who is a seventh-grader, scored the lone goal as Clemmons squeaked past Meadowlark Middle School 1-0 a couple weeks ago at North Forsyth High School. 

“So, we’ve been close a couple of times, but we’ve always played second fiddle to Jefferson and Meadowlark. They’ve been so strong,” Coach Stephen Davies of Clemmons Middle said.  

Davies, a native of Wales, began teaching eighth-grade math at Clemmons Middle in 2004. 

“It’s taken, when the school first opened in 1999 the girls soccer won the championship,” Davies said. “But that was before my time. And so, we haven’t won one since then.” 

Clemmons Middle, which was on the road for all three games, defeated Hanes 5-1 in the first round.  

“There’s two conferences – East and West,” Davies said. “We tied for second place in our conference. The top four face each other in a three-game playoff basically. We beat Hanes in the quarterfinals, we played Jefferson (which was the No. 1 seed in Clemmons’ division) in the semis in pouring rain, and we played Meadowlark in the final and won that game 1-0.” 

The semifinal against Jefferson was played at the Ivey M. Redmon Sports Complex in Kernersville. 

“I mean we scored with 2 minutes left on the clock and just the release,” Davies said. “Basically, we avenged one of our losses. We lost two conference games and Jefferson was one of our losses. So, it was a relief to avenge that loss.” 

During the three-game tournament, Clemmons Middle, which finished the season 8-2, avenged its regular-season losses against Jefferson and Meadowlark.  

“After the Meadowlark loss, which was our second loss, we kind of made some changes, but the belief was always there,” Davies said. “And so, the girls just had each other’s back, and the goal again was just to break that 25-year curse.” 

According to Davies, Sheldon scored 10 minutes in the second half. There are two 30-minute halves in middle-school soccer.  

“I try not to park the bus, but we were really trying to play the clock out,” Davies said.  

There was a celebration for the team last week.  

“I was looking back, and this is the 16th team I’ve coached,” Davies said. “So, it was sweet to win it this year after again, the school hasn’t won for 25 years. So, all the hard work has finally paid off.” 

The pay off resulted in a championship. 

“We’ve always had really good athletes at Clemmons,” Davies said. “I mean, the girls all play outside (club teams) of school too. So, this year the pieces finally fell into place, and we were just able to get over the hurdle.” 

The girls soccer team at Clemmons Middle will also receive something before school gets out next week for the summer to commemorate the championship. 

“We’ve also got some t-shirts made up,” Davies said. “They haven’t come in yet, but some championship (memorabilia) made up. It’ll be nice when we all get to wear those the same day.” 

In addition to the team, Davies is quick to praise his assistant coach, Bri Odoms, as well athletics directors Wendy Cheek and Brett Rice. 

“I do want to give a shout-out to the boys soccer team, the baseball team, the boys and girls basketball team at Clemmons. We had a great year this year. They all won championships.”