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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

Talk about making progress.

Here’s a sentence you had read twice in Davie girls soccer history, and a sentence you hadn’t read since 2015: Davie girls soccer beat Mt. Tabor.

Davie’s first-year coach, Corbin Kopetzky, believed the War Eagles could beat Tabor after the Spartans scored in the last minute to squeak out a 2-1 decision on March 30. His girls proved it at home on May 2, winning 1-0 in double overtime.

“I think that’s the most excited I’ve been all season,” Kopetzky said. “I told them before the game: ‘Regardless of what the scoreboard says, we’ve got to be one percent better than we were yesterday. We don’t have to be great at everything, but let’s be pretty darn good at being us.’”

One hundred minutes later, the War Eagles had won a game for the ages.

“We acted like we’ve been there before,” he said. “I told them: ‘You guys are building a foundation to be proud of.’ We’re not the team we were Day One. We’ve improved and made progress every day.”

It was drama of the highest order, the game stuck on 0-0 for 98-plus minutes. Then junior Lexi Kulis seized the day, scoring her team-high eighth goal with 1:15 remaining.

“Lexi came back from an injury tonight,” Kopetzky said. “Actually I was going to limit her playing time; I’m glad I didn’t now. At halftime I said: ‘If we’re going to take those long shots, we’ve got to crash the goal.’ We did better on that. Lexi and two other people crashed. It was a scramble. It was Lexi, a defender and the keeper going up and Lexi headed it. The keeper laid out. She got up quick and Lexi took off and put it in the back of the net from about eight yards out. She won that battle. I’m glad she’s on my team.”

Junior goalie Avery Yount played splendidly.

“Holy cow, Avery might have played the best game I’ve ever watched her play,” he said. “She made some big saves – some crazy saves, some dives. She’s a whole different keeper than she was a year ago.”

The defensive line (juniors Riley Almond and junior Rebecca Devericks, freshman Jaden Sink and sophomore Kim Torres), and juniors Mya McGowan and Emily Garner were major factors as Davie beat Tabor for the first time since 2015.

“Our back line held it down in the back,” he said. “They all did their jobs.

“Mya battled. She got in one girl’s head and she took her off her game. She’s very aggressive. Mya stepped up and won some 50-50 balls that we needed to go our way.

“Emily was all over the place. She was making some crazy stops for us.”

Notes: Tabor and Davie came into the game in fifth and sixth place in the Central Piedmont Conference, respectively. … Tabor dropped to 8-8-1. … Davie was 2-41-2 all-time against Tabor before this.

WF 1, Davie 0

The War Eagles did not pull off a shocker in Clemmons on May 4, but they gave the first-place Titans all they wanted.

The Titans, who are unbeaten in the CPC, had outscored league opponents 44-4 before hosting Davie. They were averaging 3.7 goals per game before getting held to one by the pesky War Eagles.

“It was a great feeling,” Kopetzky said of the moral victory. “It’s all about making progress. Beating Tabor and being that competitive with West shows everything we’ve done.”

Yount (10 saves) and the defense played exceptionally well. What made the margin even more gratifying was the fact that Davie lost 4-0 to West on April 4 and that Davie entered with a 1-58-2 all-time record against the Titans.

West’s goal came in the first 30 seconds of the second half.

“They pushed us on the defensive side for a decent chunk of the game, but like I’ve said time and time again, that defensive unit is just outstanding,” he said. “They were pounding on us but we responded well.”

Notes: West’s records are 13-5-1 overall and 10-0 in the CPC. Davie is 5-9-3, 2-8-1. … Davie is 1-4 in games decided by one goal. … Davie’s JV lost 6-0 at West and finished the season 0-8.