One Cowboy barked at another “Hey, put that back!” when the cone set up in the practice drill mischievously got moved to make it harder for the opposing side.

When one of Southwest Guilford’s top scorers, Joey Fiorello, was asked about his knack for finding the back of the net, a teammate jokingly chimed in with a comment about his height.

As Justin Jones tried to explain the secret to his remarkably long throw-ins, Kevin Lyons reached over and squeezed his biceps: “He’s been working out a little bit,” Lyons said with a laugh.

“You noticed!” replied the smiling Jones.

Sure, Southwest Guilford’s soccer team possesses talent galore on the field. But it’s easy to see the secret to the unbeaten group’s success.

“We’re a lot more of a team, I’d say, than in previous years,” said Lyons, a right midfielder. “We’re just having fun.”

The Cowboys have gotten the last laugh so far at the expense of their foes. Southwest owns an 11-0-3 record and currently sits atop the Piedmont Triad 4A Conference standings. On the heels of three early ties to Northern Guilford (twice) and Western Alamance, the Cowboys pulled out tough wins over the likes of Grimsley and Northwest Guilford while rarely being challenged in other contests.

Still, as well as Southwest was playing, the true measure of just how good this team might be came last Tuesday against nemesis Ragsdale. Cowboy seniors Lyons, Jones, Fiorello, David Merritt and Max Wang, all with three years of varsity experience, owned four ties and two losses against the Tigers – including season-ending defeats in the playoffs the past two years.

“I still remember sophomore year when they beat us at our place,” Fiorello said. “That really hurt me personally.”

“We came out ready to play and I don’t think they expected us to come out like that,” Jones said of a three-goal outburst in the first half.

“Payback,” added Wang, a defensive midfielder, of what would become a 7-1 romp. “We’ve been waiting for this game for a while.”

“There’s not been a year where it’s not been close,” said Merritt.

Summed up Lyons, with another laugh: “I just think we really wanted to kill ‘em.”

It’s the manner in which Southwest racks up the wins that’s most impressive. Andrew Daniel leads the squad with 12 goals, while Fiorello owns 11 and Merritt seven. Jones, a left-mid, orchestrates much of the attack with an impressive 18 assists – many of them off that throw-in that seemingly covers half the field to find Fiorello on the other end.

“I know everybody knows that he’s got a big throw, but no one really knows that he can go from midfield to the 18 except for the players on our team,” Fiorello explained. “I kind of see that coming, wait for him to start to throw it and start running. No one else does it besides us, really.”

Outside of that one key weapon, Southwest’s attack is diverse enough to give defense’s fits.

“We don’t have one superstar,” Jones offered.

“Everybody has contributed, whether it’s defensively, offensively, winning balls in the midfield,” coach Rob Szitas said. “It’s not that we’re a one-dimensional team, one player who if you shut that player down, other people can’t pick up the slack. We have a lot of really, really good players, and every day, somebody rises to the occasion.”

The biggest additions have come on defense this year after Southwest lost all-state performer Ben Weeks and league keeper of the year Robert Parker to graduation. As good as all the seniors have been on the offensive side, it took a freshman bursting onto the scene to stabilize the back.

“With Danny Gillespie, we knew we had a rising freshman who did well in middle school and with his club,” Szitas explained. “Being a keeper as long as he’d been, we knew he had a chance to come in and start on varsity. He had to earn it – and he definitely did that.”

In a few years, he’ll no doubt become one of those team leaders. For now, though, Southwest’s seniors are juggling success – and just the right amount of silliness – with no problem. There’s little doubt more good times lay ahead.

shanf@hpe.com | 888-3526