By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

THOMASVILLE — Salisbury’s boys soccer team has won so often for so long under coach Matt Parrish that great seasons are taken for granted.

But there aren’t many sure things in high school sports. Rosters churn and change. Amazing players don’t just roll off the assembly line every year. Amazing players are created by a combination of talent and coaching and experience,

This was just a decent soccer season for the Hornets, who had some talent, but not a lot of experience. Only four starters were back from the 2021 squad.

It all ended in the first round of the 2A state playoffs on Tuesday with a 3-0 loss to Central Carolina Conference rival East Davidson.

The 24th-seeded Hornets fell to the ninth-seeded Golden Eagles in September, October and November. The last two were shutouts.

“This was a growing-pains type of year,” Parrish said. “We had inexperienced young players and we had some inexperienced older players who had never played for me. A brand new back line. We don’t have to rebuild often at Salisbury, but this certainly has to be called a rebuilding year.”

Parrish was too modest to say it out loud, but the Hornets’ “down” season — 12-9, a third-place CCC finish, with a playoff berth — would be considered a banner year at most schools.

“I guess we can say we were the last team standing in Rowan County,” Parrish said. “Even if it was only by one day.”

South Rowan (14-8-1) lost 2-0 to CATA in a 3A first-round playoff game played in dismal weather conditions on Monday. Salisbury beat both of those solid teams in tight matches, so it’s not like the Hornets weren’t pretty good.

But they got off to a bad start in their latest matchup with East Davidson (18-3-1).

‘Six or seven minutes in, we had a lack of communication in the box, and their guy scores on a rocket shot from 7 or 8 yards out,” Parrish said. “Nothing our keeper could do about that one. We got down quick and we weren’t really a team built for coming from behind.”

East Davidson scored on a set piece for a 2-0 edge. The Golden Eagles converted on a PK for a 3-0 halftime lead.

“They’re good and the good teams capitalize whenever you make a mistake,” Parrish said.

Neither team scored in the second half. Salisbury played without an injured David Austin in the second half.

“We must had at least a dozen corners over the course of the game,” Parrish said. “Probably had eight to 10 quality looks, but we couldn’t capitalize, and you’re only going to get so many opportunities to score against East Davidson.”

Parrish lauded the play of Hines Busby, who marked East Davidson’s top scorer.

“Hines played great, worked his tail off for 80 minutes,” Parrish said. “He’ll sleep well.”

Parrish also praised junior Yatti Avilez for being the glue player for the Hornets’ moderately successful season.

The future looks brighter for the Hornets.

“Looking at East Davidson’s roster and (second-place) West Davidson’s roster, they’ve got a lot of seniors,” Parrish said. “So maybe we can get back in it in the long run. We want to remember how bad it felt losing tonight and work to be better next year.”

East Davidson plays at eighth-seeded Shelby in the second round.