By Brian Pitts
Davie Enterprise Record

The margins are not as gaudy and the Davie wrestling team isn’t running away from the competition like it does most years. But coach Buddy Lowery still loves where his young’uns sit. How could he not? Davie entered the week 7-0.
Is it legal for a team this young to be undefeated? It can’t be legal for a team to be this young, have this many injuries and still be undefeated.
In a thrilling 34-29 win over Lake Norman, Lowery went to work with two freshmen and five sophomores. He was missing two starters (Logan Cartner, Ryan Smith). In the first match of the season, Davie squeaked past South Caldwell on criteria, or the eighth step in the tiebreaker process. In the Lake Norman match, Davie scored the final 13 points to wipe out an eight-point deficit.
“I told you before the season that people weren’t going to leave early this year,” Lowery said. “That definitely helped us. Lake Norman is not bad. They’re probably in the top five (in 4-A). We’ll probably meet again down the road.”
Davie hosted West Rowan and Lake Norman on the same night last week. The War Eagles dismantled West Rowan 73-6.
Davie got 11 pins from Bailey Ingram, Trevon Faulkner, Alex Gobble, Jack Robertson, Toby Lowe, Cameron Beck, Mick Spillman, Lake Billings, Trevor Albarron, Alex Costner and Parker Grant.
T.J. Freidt added a major decision, while Gerald Whitaker contributed a three-point decision.
AGAINST LAKE NORMAN, Davie got a measure of revenge for last year’s 35-34 loss in the second round of the 4-A playoffs. In that one, the Wildcats were ranked second in the state and Davie third.
In this one, nothing was certain until the last match.
Whitaker got Davie started with a pin, and Faulkner’s pin gave Davie a 12-7 lead. Alex Gobble gave Davie a jolt by erasing a 9-6 deficit in the third period. He delivered a crowd-pleasing, five-point move to surge to an 11-9 lead, and he held on 11-10. That was a big swing. Instead of a 12-10 score, it was 15-7.
Though Gobble called it a sloppy win, the sophomore will take it.
“I hadn’t wrestled well against West Rowan or Lake Norman,” Gobble said. “I just had a bad night. (In the third period) we went to standing up, I got a standing cradle and rolled back with it.” With a sigh, he added: “I didn’t want to keep it that close.”
Lowe’s pin provided a 21-11 lead. But the Wildcats took the next four weight classes and had a 29-21 lead with three to go. Spillman lost in triple overtime, a draining battle that lasted eight minutes …