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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

Baseball

The West Forsyth baseball team won its two games last week during the first two rounds of the NCHSAA Class 4-A tournament.  

The pairings were released last Monday and West Forsyth (22-6) was named the No. 12 seed in the West. It was slated to play No. 21 Cornelius Hough in Clemmons, but after a series of weather delays, the game was pushed to Wednesday.  

West Forsyth won that game 6-3.  

“You know, you find out on Monday, everybody’s excited, get everything ready to go, but Tuesday gets here, you know, we had lightning and weather delay,” Coach Kevin McIntosh of the Titans said. “And finally, we ended up postponing the game until Wednesday. We never got a lot of rain on Tuesday, but lightning was all in the area.” 

There was another short delay at the start of Wednesday’s game because of weather before they finally played.  

“Stayed locked in and stayed focused,” McIntosh said. “They had a really good arm on the mound, who’s committed to Vanderbilt. And we were able to piece together a few things and execute. And we just got another stellar performance out of Jack Vest on that mound that night.” 

After a scoreless first 3.5 innings, West Forsyth scratched across two runs in the bottom of the fourth to take a 2-0 lead. Hough scored a run in the top of the fifth, but West Forsyth answered with three runs in the bottom of the fifth. Hough (18-9) scored two runs in the top of the sixth to make it 5-3, but West Forsyth scored a run in the bottom of the sixth.  

“Corey Kellam came in when Jack had hit his pitch count and got us out of the sixth inning that night,” McIntosh said. “…Then we went to Landon Church, who pitched the seventh inning that night.” 

West Forsyth moved on to the second round on Friday night in Clemmons and faced No. 28 Southeast Guilford (15-14), which upset No. 5 Charlotte Providence in the first round. 

West Forsyth defeated Southeast Guilford 3-1 with the help of a two-run home run by Parker Trexler in the bottom of the fifth inning. Trexler’s homer gave West Forsyth a 3-0 lead. 

“Obviously, they had upset Providence in the first round and had some momentum going,” McIntosh said. “And we came in, again, executed. You know, it probably wasn’t our best overall game, but it was good enough and did what we had to do, and Parker’s two-run home run was ultimately the difference in a 3-1 ballgame.” 

The state tournament only gets more difficult from here. West Forsyth is slated to travel to face Central Piedmont 4-A rival No. 4 Reagan (22-4) on Tuesday night, barring weather, in the third round. The two teams split the two games during the regular season.  

“Any time you play a conference opponent that you’re very familiar with each other there’s no secrets,” McIntosh said. “And everybody just has to – we’ve just got to play relaxed.” 

Reagan won the regular-season conference championship, but it was upset by Glenn in the semifinals of the conference tournament. West Forsyth finished second in the regular season, but it defeated Glenn in the conference-tournament championship. 

“I think if you look at us both, we split,” McIntosh said. “We beat them 5-3. They beat us 2-0. We’ve both got 22 wins on the season. We both rely on our pitching staffs and our defense. You know, I think it sets up for another 1-0, 2-0 ballgame. And it comes down to execution and whoever executes at the time when it’s on the line is who’s going to be the winner of the ballgame.” 

The winner of the West Forsyth at Reagan game will play the winner of Monday’s scheduled game between No. 9 Ragsdale at No. 1 Asheville Reynolds in the quarterfinals later this week. 

“Our guys are used to playing there (at Reagan),” McIntosh said. “They know what kind of atmosphere it’s going to be over there. The big factor is the weather. The forecast does not look good.” 

Softball 

Things didn’t go as well for the West Forsyth softball team. 

West Forsyth (24-4) won its first-round game of the NCHSAA Class 4-A tournament last week against Central Piedmont 4-A foe East Forsyth 4-3.  

West Forsyth lost its second-round game last Friday night at Northwest Guilford 2-1, ending its season. 

“It was tough,” Coach Kevin Baity of West Forsyth said. “It was a tough one. I definitely think we were the better team. I think we would’ve had a whole lot better results if we had got to play at home. That’s just a position that we put ourselves in by not winning the outright conference (title) and having to get on the road. 

“But anyway, it was tough. We had some opportunities and couldn’t take advantage. We had second and third and no outs in the first inning and didn’t get a run in.” 

The pairings for the NCHSAA Class 4-A tournament were announced last Monday and West Forsyth, which won the Central Piedmont 4-A tournament, was awarded the No. 13 seed. West Forsyth was slated to play No. 20 East Forsyth, which is also in the Central Piedmont 4-A, in the first round in Clemmons.  

East Forsyth (13-13) scored three runs in the top of the fifth to take a 3-2 lead, but West Forsyth tied it with a run in the sixth and won the game with a run in the seventh. 

“That was one I’ll say, for one, (East Forsyth has) definitely improved,” Baity said. “I think (Coach) Karlee (Honeyecutt) has done a great job at East. And I think she’s going to continue to do a great job. But, you know, I think we’d outscored them 26-1 in the two games this year (regular season)…I think definitely, no question, I preached it over and over we can’t overlook them, playing a team for the third time. 

“But it’s hard, regardless of what you say, and even me, you can’t look at it and say you don’t feel like very confident we’re going to win that game.” 

Baity said there was an hour and a half lightning delay in the middle of the game. 

“I said after the first two innings, I said, ‘I just don’t feel good about this,’” Baity said. “It’s just one of those games. It’s scary. But we were fortunate to win it.” 

Girls soccer

The West Forsyth girls soccer team had an up-and-down week last week. 

West Forsyth (15-3-1) had already clinched the Central Piedmont 4-A championship and it was 12-0 in the conference before last week’s two games against Reynolds at home last Monday and at East Forsyth last Wednesday to close the regular season.  

West Forsyth routed Reynolds 6-1 with the help of two goals by Aislynn Maguire. However, on Wednesday, West Forsyth traveled to Kernersville and was upended 2-1 to end the regular season, ending the hopes of finishing the regular season undefeated in-conference. 

“It is and it isn’t (disappointing),” Coach Jeffrey Williams of West Forsyth said. “Like our season’s not dictated on one loss by East, but the three games prior to that, we played Reagan and played a very good game, and got a clinch (at least a share) of the conference title. And then the next game was the Davie game at home, and we clinched the title. 

“And the followings – Reynolds at home, which was senior night, which was a huge night for us.” 

West Forsyth had defeated East Forsyth 4-0 in Clemmons earlier in the season. 

“And so, it had all the right ingredients for there sort of to be a trap game… And there’s AP testing, and kids having all sorts of stuff that they’re doing,” Williams said. “Not by any means, it’s an excuse or anything. I don’t know that I had the kids prepared as they should’ve been.” 

The pairings for the NCHSAA Class 4-A playoffs were announced on Friday and West Forsyth was awarded No. 3 seed in the West. In the first round, which was scheduled for Monday night in Clemmons, West Forsyth played No. 30 Davie County (7-8-2), which is a very familiar team from the Central Piedmont 4-A. West Forsyth defeated Davie County 3-1 and 5-0 in the two regular-season games this season. 

“I think the old adage is it’s hard to play a team three times,” Williams said. “But Davie’s a quality opponent, and we’re in the playoffs, and they obviously made it and we made it. And we’ll be completely ready to go to play them.” 

The winner of the game will play later this week in the second round against the winner of Monday’s first-round game between No. 19 Lake Norman at No. 14 Waxhaw Cuthbertson. 

“We play our best games on our home field,” Williams said. “And we’re lucky to have that advantage. Davie is very, very strong defensively. The first game we played them I think we didn’t score the first goal until the 60th minute.  

“And when we played them a couple weeks ago, we had clinched a share of the conference, and that game was for the conference title (for West Forsyth). So, we were playing for a lot. And we put in a couple early that I think changed the way the game was played.” 

Girls lacrosse

The West Forsyth girls lacrosse season ended last week after it lost in the third round of the NCHSAA Class 4-A tournament. 

West Forsyth (19-2), which was the No. 2 seed, lost to No. 7 Waxhaw Marvin Ridge 20-11 last week in the third round of the Class 4-A tournament. 

“Our mindset was to, no matter what happened that day, when we walked off the field, that we walked off knowing we played the best we could play,” Coach Doug Brawley of West Forsyth said. “That it didn’t matter what the score was. That we were able to hold our heads up and know that we gave it our all.  

“And if that resulted in a win that would be great. If it resulted in a loss, so be it. But we wanted to make sure that we played West Forsyth lacrosse.” 

Bailey Fox led the Titans with four goals, Alivia Gurley scored three, and Gaby Vestal and Tatum Snow chipped in with two goals apiece. 

“We jumped on them. We were up 5-1 at the end of the first quarter and then we got a little sloppy, and had two yellow cards in the second quarter, which gave them the opportunity to catch up,” Brawley said. “They scored four goals in the second quarter during while we were a man down, and (Marvin Ridge) went into halftime up 10-6 on us. So, that kind of switched the momentum.” 

Marvin Ridge (15-5) lost in the next round, which was the quarterfinals to No. 3-seed Charlotte Catholic 13-6. 

“We had so much going against us,” Brawley said. “For these girls to come together the way they did to support each other, I can’t say enough. And it’s one of the best teams I’ve ever had as far as camaraderie and playing together.”