The prep soccer notebook …

Salisbury High School’s extensive ties to the Catawba College soccer program grow a little more tonight at 7.

The Hornets will play Davie County on the Indians’ soccer field in what turns out to be a real treat for Salisbury. Instead of being confined to a football field’s boundaries, the Hornets and War Eagles will play on a much wider, larger expanse.

“It changes the complexion of the game, really spreads the field out,”Salisbury head coach Tom Sexton said. “It’s often to the advantage of the quicker team.”

And these Hornets can fly. Games on most high school sites are played on a football field 60 yards wide by 110 yards long. The regulation field for tonight will be 75 by 120.

Former Sexton assistant Kevin Dempsey, who coached at Salisbury from 1988 to 1991, helped set up the game. Dempsey left the Hornets for Catawba in 1991 and currently heads the women’s soccer program.

Also, David Marcincavage, a two-time All-American keeper while at Catawba, helps Sexton on game days. And last week, Salisbury squared off against High Point Central, coached by David Upchurch — a teammate of Dempsey’s at Catawba.

“We have a lot of deep roots at Catawba,”Sexton said.

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big win: High Point Central stands as the most prominent hurdle for the Hornets this season in the 2ACentral Carolina Conference. That’s why last week’s 3-1 win over the Bison was key.

“We’ve always been in the race with them,”Sexton said. “The last four years, High Point Central and Salisbury have either tied, played double overtimes — it’s always been one goal.”

The Bison managed the only CCC win against Salisbury last year, and in 1998, when the Hornets went undefeated in the league, High Point managed two ties.

The win early in the conference season might be even more important for the 2000 season, as the CCC gets only two playoff berths. The Hornets now have a leg up in several tie-breaker situations, like if Central manages a tie in the second meeting on Oct. 4, and could leave the Bison fighting for second place with the likes of Ledford, East Davidson and North Rowan.

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additions, subtractions: A pair of banged-up Hornets hasn’t hurt Sexton’s squad as much as anticipated thanks to two key newcomers.

Sophomore forward Alex Beaver is out for another week with a severe groin injury and senior stopper Jeff Sheehan, only recently anointed a starter, has a troublesome rib injury.

On the bright side, though, the Hornets had junior forward-midfielder Bryan Goodnight transfer in from North Hills Christian School and senior midfielder-defender Chris Berry move in from Indiana.

“They’re really well-rounded players, very versatile,”Sexton said. “I’ve been real pleased with them.”

West

Rob Sweet’s young Falcon team has played up-and-down soccer this season and finds itself, appropriately enough, 4-4 overall and 2-2 in the 3ASouth Piedmont Conference.

West upset Salisbury, but been pummeled by SouthRowan. Good showing, bad showing.

“You can’t say, ‘OK, we beat Salisbury,’ then get squashed by South Rowan. Teams like South want to win, and we’re still trying to find that,”Sweet said. “When the kids come out ready to play, we can hang in just about any game. If we don’t, it’s not going to be a close game. There’s not a middle.”

Sweet can attribute many of his team’s inconsistencies to inexperience. The Falcons have few seniors or other experienced players. The offense has been getting good shots on goal and scoring at a decent clip, but defensive problems have emerged.

“The defense is not quick. They’re working hard, but fundamentally it’s not all there, and that’s everywhere — all the way up to the forwards,”Sweet said. “On the (defensive) side of the ball, sometimes they don’t seem to have the desire. They know they have it and they can bring it out when need to.”

The time is now. At 2-2 in the league, West is bunched with several teams behind Northwest Cabarrus, Sun Valley and Central Cabarrus. The Falcons dropped a solid 1-0 decision to Northwest but have 11 SPCmatches remaining to make up ground.

Sweet is depending on the team’s leaders to get West through this stretch of the season. Seniors Mark Miller and Greg Lowe, juniors Brian Armada and Andrew Belk and sophomore Michael Wetter are scattered about the field in every position.

“Those five play throughout the middle of the field and we build around them,”Sweet said. “They’re doing well and trying to be leaders. They’re our most experienced guys.”

North

The Cavaliers aren’t quite up to beating mighty 4A South Rowan or perennial 2A playoff squad High Point Central. Back-to-back 8-0 losses to those two teams aren’t easy to take, but playing well, no matter what the final score, does count for something.

“There are good 8-0s and bad 8-0s. We can see the progress in what we’re trying to do,”Cavs head coach Vince Connolly said. “Somewhere along the line we have some bad games trying to play our system. When we play good teams, they exploit those weaknesses. We have mental breakdowns and scores can get ugly in a hurry.”

Wednesday night against East Davidson, it took a little longer, but ended ugly nonetheless. Jordan Littleton gave North an early 1-0 lead before the War Eagles tied the match, then went up 3-1 on two long, unlikely goals.

“You see maybe one of these goals a year — 30 yards out from the side, it hits in off the post and falls into the side netting,”Connolly said. “It’s frustrating. It’s no one’s fault. Some times the ball takes some strange bounces.”

The 4-1 final left the Cavs 0-2 in the Central Carolina Conference heading into Monday night’s game against visiting Salisbury.

“The guys really wanted to win and felt they worked hard enough for a win,”Connolly said. “We’re going to take a day off, take a break from soccer, then prepare for Salisbury looking at the next three games as must-wins for us.”

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soccer shuffle: Chico Sanchez and Littleton have been busy, doing all the things forwards do, plus a whole lot more.

Instead of concentrating on the offense, Sanchez and Littleton have been forced to help in the middle. That’s because Adam Montieth and Kevin Rutherford haven’t been able to play as much midfield — because sweeper Kiel Jarrett has been out with a hip pointer the past three weeks.

“You rob Peter to pay Paul when you have to start moving people around,”Connolly said. “Maybe it’ll work out better for the team, maybe not. It doesn’t help us going in the other direction.”

South

The Raiders aren’t quite as hot as they were in the early going, but 6-2-1 isn’t anything to complain about.

“We may have dropped off a little bit,”head coach Sean Szakal said. “We’re trying a bunch of different things. We need to get more offense to really be a contender.”

Derrick Beaver’s hat trick led the way against North, with Thomas Hawkins, Neal Roberts, Matt Biles, Jesus Leon and Ronnie Shore adding single goals. Only two nonconference games remain, against Concord, before South starts play in the brutal 4A Central Piedmont Conference.

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The soccer notebook appears on Thursdays.