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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

A look back at Davie sports 30 years ago …

The 1993-94 Davie girls basketball team won the Sam Moir Christmas Tournament in juggernaut fashion, beating South Rowan by 20, shaving top-seeded West Rowan by five and pounding East Rowan by 19 in the championship game.

In the 56-37 blowout of East, Davie got 7-of-10 shooting from 6-3 Maria Newsome, who was named tournament MVP. Carrie Brown and Tami Ramsey earned all-tourney honors.

“This is the best team we’ve had in a long time,” coach Angie Slabach said.

The Davie boys basketball team wiped out a seven-point deficit with just over three minutes left in the fourth quarter and survived 70-64 in overtime at South Stokes. Facing a 56-49 deficit, the War Eagles went on a 7-0 run, capped by Chad Alexander’s pull-up 3 on the break. With Davie down by two, Jared Eure sank a turnaround jumper with 14 seconds left to tie it at 59. Then Eure took a feed from Chad Lanier and buried a jumper to give Davie a 61-59 lead. Lanier hit a free throw to extend it to 62-59, but South made a long 3 to force overtime. In OT, a guy who had not made a shot in regulation decided to take over. Scott Van Hoy nailed a 15-footer, then drained a 3 to all but put the Sauras away at 67-62. An unsung hero was Marnic Lewis, who scored eight straight points during one stretch.

The Davie boys pulled out another nailbiter, 63-62, over North Davidson. North had a three-point lead before Van Hoy went bananas. He hit four straight triples to vault Davie in front 50-44. It was a seesaw game, with Davie down 55-52 and then ahead 63-56. But the War Eagles missed the front end of three one-and-ones and North fought back within one. A Black Knight found himself on the free-throw line for a one-and-one with his team behind 63-62 with one second left. He missed the front end and Davie was all smiles amid a frenzied scene. Davie’s top scorers were Eure (19 points), Van Hoy (12) and Tyrone Martin (10).

Coach Ron Kirk and North Davie wrestling churned out excellence every year. Kirk lost eight guys to grades at midseason, but it hardly mattered because the Wildcats were crazy loaded. They drilled North Rowan 66-18 and Trinity 74-9 to raise their record to 10-0. Wins by Jamey Holt, Nathan Ferree, Scott Cornatzer and Dyrell Dalton gave North a 30-18 lead, and it pulled away behind victories from John Ireland, Robert Guratzsch, Will Lowdermilk, David Mackie, Brian Murphy and Jamie Shore.

The North Davie boys basketball team stunned unbeaten Knox 53-47. A big factor was the rebounding of the Neese twins. Jamie and Jason combined for 29 boards.

Keisha Wagner of Davie’s JV girls basketball team was magnificent in a 60-44 win over North Davidson, scoring 30 points. Laura Moyer was next with eight. Page Steed and Heather Johnson had five each.

By tearing through South Rowan (55-18), Reynolds (62-12) and South Stokes (68-6), Davie’s wrestling team closed the regular season with a 16-0 record. Dan Callahan outscored three opponents 48-4. At this point in the season, Scotty Spry was 22-0. Other notable records: Matt Sain and Michael Hunter were both 21-3, Adam Connor 21-4, Mark Mason 20-2, Justin Jenne 20-4, Neil Cornatzer 19-3, Mark McKnight 17-2 and Justin Carter 14-2.

North Davie wrestling’s last three regular-season matches were a continuation of its utter dominance. The Wildcats ripped through J.N. Fries, Concord and Kannapolis to complete a 15-0 record. It marked the fifth perfect season for Kirk, who guided North to 76-3 across four years. Among the weapons on North were Jesse Marion, John Mauney, Zeb Carter, Jason Jolly and Ryan Cornatzer.

In the Piedmont Conference Tournament at North Rowan, Kirk’s Wildcats kept their foot on the gas, capturing first with 210 points, or 68 more than runner-up J.N. Fries. Ferree (93), S. Cornatzer (119), Dalton (125), Carter (135), David Mackie (171) and Shore (heavyweight) finished first in their respective weight classes. Holt was second at 83. South Davie’s lone champ was JJ Rice at 160.

The Davie boys basketball team pulled out yet another down-to-the-wire battle, winning 58-56 at North Davidson to give Davie two wins over North by a total of three points. Martin broke the tie with a putback at :16. Brent Cassidy paced the offense with 15 points, followed by Martin with 12 and Eure with 10.

The Davie girls assumed sole possession of first place at 7-1 with a 68-62 win over North Davidson. Davie’s nine-point cushion melted to two, but Ramsey, a cool sophomore, preserved the win by making 9 of 10 free throws in the fourth quarter. Ramsey and Brown finished with 19 points each. Newsome had 15 and Shannon Umberger nine.

The Davie boys were clicking on all cylinders in a 74-56 blowout win at Mt. Tabor. Martin (16), Deryl Wilson (15), Eure (13) and Chad Alexander (13) all scored in double figures. “That’s the best game I’ve seen Davie play since I’ve been coaching,” Tabor coach Dick Jamback said.

In the season finale, the South Davie freshman boys won a 74-71 slugfest over North Davie. The Wildcats outscored South 27-21 in an action-packed fourth, but they came up short by missing two 3s in the waning seconds. South’s main guns were Frankie Tatum (25 points, four 3-pointers), Josh Barnhardt (24 points, seven 3s) and Jamie Lyons (15 points). While Chris Meacham poured in 22 for the Wildcats, they couldn’t overcome South’s 14 3s. North’s Eric Kistler had 19 and Will Hege 10. In the first meeting, when Meacham did not play, South routed North 73-43.

Spry, a genius on the mat, took home his second state championship in two tries. He won the title at 119 and capped his junior season at 35-0. N. Cornatzer finished second at 160 to wrap up a 25-4 record. (The sophomore would win the final 79 matches of his career and two state titles.) Hunter was third at 145 as the War Eagles celebrated their greatest season ever. They won the state dual team title, went 20-0 and took third in the state individual tournament.