Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Jay Spivey 

For the Clemmons Courier

Baseball

The West Forsyth baseball team eased through the Central Piedmont 4-A tournament en route to the title.  

As the No. 2 seed last week, West Forsyth routed No. 7 Reynolds 15-0 last Monday in the first round in Clemmons, defeated No. 6 Mount Tabor 11-1 last Tuesday in the semifinals at East Forsyth, and it defeated No. 4 Glenn 15-5 last Thursday in the championship at East Forsyth. 

“We played really well this week,” Coach Kevin McIntosh of West Forsyth said. “Obviously, a few upsets in the tournament kind of made the road a little bit easier. But anytime when it’s tournament time nothing’s easy, which is why there’s always upsets. And we were able to avoid those upsets and take care of business and in 10-run fashions all three games.” 

If seeding had held to form West Forsyth (20-6) would’ve faced No. 3 East Forsyth (14-9) in the semifinals and No. 1 Reagan (20-4) in the championship. However, Mount Tabor (5-13) defeated East Forsyth in the first round and Reagan lost to Glenn (17-9) in the semifinals. 

“I think going into it in everyone’s mind it was going to be East in the semifinal game and Reagan in the championship game,” McIntosh said. “Obviously, neither one of those occurred, which we had to make sure we regrouped and didn’t overlook anybody.” 

“In the championship game, Glenn comes out and goes up 4-(2),” McIntosh said. “And we could’ve easily have just quit and folded up, but instead we responded, we finally answered in the bottom of the fourth with a seven-run fourth inning there, and once we kind of took the lead it was like a whole different ball team.” 

The NCHSAA released the pairings on Monday for the Class 4-A state tournament. West Forsyth received the No. 12 seed in the West and was scheduled to play host to No. 21 Cornelius Hough (18-8) Tuesday night in the first round of the tournament. The winner will play later this week against the winner of Tuesday’s scheduled game between No. 28 Southeast Guilford at No. 5 Charlotte Providence. 

“Game 1 will be home,” McIntosh said. “And we played very well at home this year and just look to continue to do what we’ve done all year, which is pitch it, and play defense and somehow runs.” 

Softball 

Although the West Forsyth softball team won the Central Piedmont 4-A tournament it had a much more difficult road to winning it than the West Forsyth baseball team did. 

It was the first tournament championship for West Forsyth in six years. 

“It’s been a long time,” Coach Kevin Baity of the Titans (23-3) said. “The last time we won the conference tournament was 2018. So, it really didn’t affect us much for standings in the playoffs. I thought it would.” 

Even though West Forsyth tied top-seed Reagan for the regular-season title because Reagan had the tiebreaker by defeating West Forsyth twice during the regular season, West Forsyth played as the No. 2 seed in the tournament. West Forsyth defeated No. 7 Reynolds 15-0 in the first round last Monday in Clemmons, defeated No. 3 Davie County 6-3 Tuesday night in the second round last Tuesday at Glenn, and upended top-seed Reagan 1-0 last Thursday in the championship last Thursday at Glenn.  

In the championship against Reagan, West Forsyth scored its lone run in the sixth inning. According to Baity, McKinley Wall singled with one out in the sixth and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Timia Sales, and Taylor Alderman had a single down the third-base line to knock in Wall. 

Morgan Maxwell pitched a complete-game shutout against Reagan and also added three hits, according to Baity. 

“Our goals were 1, win the conference championship, and we shared that,” Baity said. “Our second goal was conference tournament because we haven’t won it since 2018. And then, obviously, our third goal was to get past the third round (of the NCHSAA Class 4-A tournament) because we’ve been losing in the first round and we should not be doing that. 

“And then, obviously, to get the regional championship in a two out of three and then, the state championship (also two out of three). So, that’s what I told them, I said, ‘We have achieved two of the three.’ We shared the conference championship. We won the conference tournament, and now Tuesday we’re going to try to get past the first round and then we’re going to go from there.” 

The NCHSAA released the pairings on Monday for the Class 4-A tournament. West Forsyth received the No. 13 seed and was scheduled to play host to fellow Central Piedmont 4-A rival East Forsyth (13-12), which received the No. 20 seed. West Forsyth swept the two regular-season games 14-1 and 12-1. 

The winner will face the winner of Tuesday’s other game between No. 28 South Iredell at No. 4 Northwest Guilford later this week in the second round. 

“Since spring break we’ve been on,” Baity said. “We came back from spring break, went to Orange (County High School) on that Monday and it showed a little bit defensively because we’d taken time off, but we hit it. We scored 14 runs on them, and we haven’t stopped hitting.” 

Girls lacrosse

The West Forsyth girls lacrosse team had more than a week off after winning the Central Piedmont 4-A tournament and received a bye in last week’s NCHSAA Class 4-A tournament.  

That didn’t matter because No. 2-seed West Forsyth routed No. 15 Southeast Guilford 18-3 Friday night in the second round of the NCHSAA Class 4-A girls lacrosse tournament with the help of six goals by Abby Vestal. 

“We had the whole week off. We had a real good week of practice,” Coach Doug Brawley of West Forsyth said. “It was hot. It was the first time the weather had really gotten up there, so it was a good transition for the girls. But they really stayed focused, and we came out (Friday) firing on all cylinders.” 

Alivia Gurley and Brighde Mullen added three goals apiece for the Titans (19-1). 

“(Vestal) did real from attacking the goal from behind the crease,” Brawley said. “Her and Brighde Mullen both worked the attack position very well.” 

Southeast Guilford finished 10-8. 

West Forsyth was scheduled to play host to No. 7 Waxhaw Marvin Ridge (14-4) Tuesday night in the third round of the NCHSAA Class 4-A West tournament.  

“I know they’re the No. 2 seed out of their conference with Weddington, who is the No. 1 team in our half of the state,” Brawley said of Marvin Ridge. “They have about four losses, two to Weddington…They’re a very, strong team. I would say we’re probably even the underdog going in.” 

Girls soccer 

The West Forsyth girls soccer team had already clinched at least a share of the Central Piedmont 4-A title before last week’s games, so they knew they could clinch the title outright last week. 

As of Monday afternoon, even with an overall record of 14-2-1 and 12-0 in the conference and two scheduled games this week to end the regular season, they did just that with wins last week against Reagan and Davie County.  

Last Monday night, West Forsyth defeated Reagan 3-1 after scoring two goals in the second half. Ella Fergus, Abby Reutinger and Aislynn Maguire scored one goal apiece to defeat Reagan (13-3, 9-3). 

Last Wednesday, West Forsyth defeated Davie County 5-0 as Maguire and Reese Williams scored two goals apiece.  

“I think it’s sort of a double-edged sword,” Coach Jeffrey Williams of the Titans said. “We go into every game obviously knowing we want to win it. And so, we’ve done that in conference. So, that’s good. And our goal was to win the conference, and we’ve done that. And that’s good. So, we wouldn’t want to be in any other position.  

“But we also don’t want to lose our edge when we play. Knowing these girls I don’t think that will happen. But I’d say I’d rather be in these shoes than in other shoes.” 

West Forsyth was scheduled to play host to Reynolds (9-6-1, 6-5-1) on Monday night, and on Wednesday, West Forsyth was scheduled to play at East Forsyth (10-5-2, 8-3-1) in the regular-season finale.  

“Both teams are very good,” Williams said. “Defensively, very sound. They do a lot of things and have a lot of players that present obstacles and present challenges for us. But that’s what we want to be facing this time of year, so we can get our get our last games in before playoffs.” 

Should the Titans finish undefeated in the conference, that’s just one other thing the team will have accomplished this season. 

“We obviously want to win every game we can,” Williams said. “I don’t think there was a definite, ‘Oh, we’ve got to go undefeated deal.’ But we felt as if, you know, that was definitely possible. We could do that.” 

The NCHSAA will release the brackets for the NCHSAA Class 4-A playoffs on Friday, and the first round is scheduled for next Monday.  

“It’ll change drastically every day with people playing and such,” Williams said. “We’ll see how it falls.”