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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

Unless there are a couple of gargantuan upsets, the Davie girls tennis team’s fourth straight CPC championship is a waiting reality.

Reynolds was the latest rival to fall victim to the Davie buzzsaw, the War Eagles eviscerating the Demons 8-1 in Winston-Salem on Sept. 11. To put the gap between Davie and everybody else in perspective, Reynolds is running second in the league at 5-2, losing 8-1 both times to unbeaten Davie.

Coach Collin Ferebee did give Reynolds credit for fighting hard.

“The (8-1) score made it look like it was really one-sided, but it was definitely not,” he said. “Reynolds played an excellent match. We had to step up and earn the win. The girls knew it was a big match, and they stepped up, they played well and got the win that they deserved. But it’s not like Reynolds rolled over and gave it to us.”

No. 1 Elliot Newsome (6-0, 6-0), No. 2 Corbin Drum (6-1, 6-4), No. 4 Leah Gibson (6-2, 6-1) and No. 5 Kate Chaffin (6-1, 6-0) cruised to victories.

But at No. 6, Casey Cao’s 4-6, 6-4, 10-7 win was a testament to her grit. She overrode a 4-3 deficit in the second set, and she wiped out a 7-4 deficit in the tiebreaker.

“She lost the first set and was trailing for the majority of the second set,” Ferebee said. “I think Casey is the most even keel player in our starting lineup. She said: ‘I’m tired but I’m going to win this.’ It was never complaining. She found a way to play her game.”

Ferebee was proud of Gibson for shaking off a slow start.

“Mackenzie Acker (of Reynolds) is a solid player and Leah had been up and down recently,” he said. “She got down 2-1 early and was getting in her own head. I said: ‘Leah, you’ve been through this before. You know how to do it.’ She won the next five games and then won 6-1 in the second set. She’s figuring out how to turn the switch on, and that’s a big step for her.”

Cao’s triumph in the tiebreaker lifted Davie’s record in those situations to 4-1. So not only have the War Eagles outscored eight opponents 68-4, they’ve taken nearly all the coin-flip matches.

“That’s just a testament to how focussed the girls stay in pressure situations,” Ferebee said. “You can’t teach that; that’s the girls and their mentality.”

The doubles matches were lopsided. Chaffin/Cao won 8-0, while Newsome/Gibson and Drum/Bailey Aderhold won 8-1.

Notes: Newsome, Drum, Cao and Chaffin are 8-0 in singles, while Aderhold is 7-1. … With five CPC matches remaining, a fourth straight title is within sight. Such a streak does not happen often. Davie softball won four straight regular-season championships from 1978-81. Football took five straight titles from 2003-07. Boys golf won 10 straight crowns from 1975-84. Davie wrestling has achieved the feat the most, winning at least four straight titles during four different stretches: 1986-91, 1994-00, 2002-06 and 2008-13.