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West win over South ends with scuffle

Regan Hill

West Iredell downed South Iredell 2-1 on Wednesday.

By Brad Norman | Statesville R&L

Published: September 3, 2009

West Iredell kept the lead and its composure late in the game Wednesday and remained undefeated with a 2-1 win over South Iredell.

Max McCoy scored three minutes in, Kody Sprinkle added a goal in the 53rd minute and the Warriors (4-0-2) continued to look like the real deal after tying 4A power Lake Norman on Monday.

"I felt we controlled the game," Warriors coach David Heintz said. "We played well again."

Vikings senior Zach Leaptrott made it 2-1 with his score in the 69th minute, but South couldn't net the equalizer before the final whistle blew.

And that's when things started to get out of hand.

The play was tough and physical, but emotions spilled over after the game.

South Iredell's Clay Brown walked into a group of West Iredell players after going through the handshake line at midfield and threw a punch at Warriors player Moises Garay.

Teammates and coaching staffs separated the group of players quickly, and South players were ordered off the field and back to the buses.

"Their kid sucker-punched ours," Heintz said when asked what happened. "It had been physical the whole game, and my boys had been backing down. (South) came out hard and played good soccer for about 10 or 20 minutes, but I felt they tried to hurt us intentionally."

South coach David Basinger, Heintz and the three officials discussed the incident at length at midfield. The camera West Iredell uses to tape games was turned off just after the game ended so there was no video.

"Cooler heads did not prevail," Basinger said.

For the game, the Warriors outshot the Vikings significantly, but South stayed in it long enough to make a run thanks to keeper Carlos Solis.

He stopped breakaways, corner kicks and headers to give the Vikings a chance.

"We like Carlos," Basinger said. "He's done a tremendous job for us. Unfortunately, West scored early and put us in a hole. That's like the third of five games we've allowed a goal in the first three minutes. I felt like we didn't take what was given to us."