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Show Davis lackers looking good KYLE KNOWLES, LEFT, and Blake Hart are two important impor-tant ingredients in the Davis soccer success story. Photo by Keith Duncan By KEITH DUNCAN KAYSVILLE -- There are some things in life you just don't want to do twice. JUST ASK the Davis High soccer soc-cer team and the only soccer coach they've ever had, Bruce Bitner. For the first time in seven years they failed to make the prestigious 4-A state tournament. That was last spring. This spring they want to repent and land one of the coveted co-veted spots again. AT THE mid-point of the season. Bitner and his troops were 3-2 and tied with Viewmont for second place in the Region Four standings. Woods Cross stood atop the league with a 5-0 record. Bountiful and Highland were both 2-3 and East was winless at 0-5. "Our goal right now is to get back into the tournament." said Bitner early this week as his club prepared to meet Viewmont on Tuesday in a very key league battle. bat-tle. "Winning the league title would be nice, but it's not the most important thing in our minds right now." i DAVIS beat Viewmont in their first league game but since that time Viewmont had won three of four games and as Bitner said, "turned into a powerhouse." The Darts earned a second place tie with the Vikings last Friday by coming-fron -behind to beat East 3-2 in overtime. THIS FRIDAY the Darts play host to Highland, which besides Woods Cross is the only other team to defeat them. At Highland in the first round of the schedule, the Davis High team "thought they'd take a trip to the beach" and were down 2-1 at halftime. They never could overcome that deficit. Bitner is fond of his 86 gathering and believes they've got what it takes to land one of the three playoff play-off spots in the region. "IT'S A unique bunch of players." play-ers." he said. "There are at least nineteen specialists, kids that play only soccer. The other nine have participated in at least one other sport. "With 19 kids having played just soccer, getting ready mentally to play sometimes is a tough thing for us. Thank goodness we've got some kids that have played other sports throughout the year and have gotten used to preparing to play in adverse conditions and generally gen-erally are just a little bit more mature ma-ture in their game preparations. "BUT OVERALL 1 believe our kids are getting tougher mentally, it's just taken some time." Bitner also said his team was young, with at least three sophomores sopho-mores playing at various times. Two of those sophomores start for Bitner and they include Blake Wilcox Wil-cox at one forward spot and Ted Donaval in the goalie spot. Robby Jacobsen is the other sophomore who comes off the bench. BUT TO go along with the youth and sometimes some lack of mental toughness, the Darts have folks like Kyle Knowles and Blake Hart who fill up most voids pretty quick. Knowles you might remember was the place kicker on last fall's football team that finished second in state. Kyle was the one who confidently con-fidently split the uprights with no time remaining to beat Mountain View in the quarterfinals. "HE'S BEEN a tremendous team leader for us." said Bitner. "He communicates well with the rest of the kids and does as much teaching out there as 1 do. if not more." Knowles usually fills up the middle halfback position but is always the guy Coach Bitner goes through to make any changes. Knowles is one team captain and the other is Hart. Through the season sea-son so far. Hart has been the "strong motivating force." Hart played one of the running back positions last fall in football and eventually went on to become an all-stater. "I BELIEVE Blake is a little intimidating in-timidating out there." said the coach. "He's a pretty big kid. "But the best thing about Blake is that I can get on him about things and he can take it. Some of the other kids couldn't take it like Blake does." SENIOR Danny Lattin has picked pick-ed up right where he left off last season and Bitner couldn't be more pleased. "He's been so much more intense and is just right for the stopper stop-per position. There are times that he'll literally just make up his mind to take the ball away from someone and go out and do it," said Bitner. Two more contributing factors to the club have been Mike Reid and Brad Richins who both take up some outside positions with this team. These guys have developed as the year has progressed, both have deceptive quickness. THE DARTS look to have what it takes to finally get back to familiar territory, the state tournament. They won it all a few years back and have consistently been one of the finest teams in either 4-A or 3-A. |