5A high school soccer: Strong start paves the way for Darts' victory over Lone Peak

KAYSVILLE — The Davis Darts came out with plenty of fire to start Thursday's 5A girls soccer showdown against the Lone Peak Knights.

And it paid off, as the Darts came away with a 3-1 win in a hard-fought battle.

Senior Katie Taylor explained the reason for the Darts' strong start.

"We knew we couldn't overlook them, they're a very tough team," Taylor said. "We wanted to come out strong and try to put the game away early."

Judging by just the first few minutes of play, it seemed that the Knights wouldn't stand a chance, as Davis maintained almost constant possession and had several scoring chances with hard shots on frame. But Lone Peak keeper Ravin King kept them stymied.

In the eighth minute, it appeared that the Darts would be the first to light the scoreboard when Kendra Bailey sent the ball in the middle to Jessica Harrison, who beat the keeper in the bottom corner, but the Knights' Alyssa Meinzer came up huge with a sliding kick.

Meinzer was all over the box defensively all day long.

Davis, however, continued the onslaught and tallied the first goal at 27:35. King came up with the initial stop but couldn't control the rebound, and Katie Taylor capitalized on the second opportunity, sneaking the ball into the net.

Lone Peak wouldn't go away and kept fighting strong. Nine minutes later, the Knights' Katie Lohner knotted the score at 1-1, putting a perfectly placed high pass from Allie Hale into the back twine. At this point, there was a noticeable shift in momentum, which continued for the rest of the half.

"We played well for the first 36 minutes," Davis coach Souli Phongsavath said.

"We needed to take the momentum and dominate them in the second half," Taylor added.

The second half, however, left little doubt as to who would ultimately come out victorious. The Darts continued their untiring attack, and it was just a matter of time until they would blow the contest open. Taylor scored her second of the game at 74:30 to break the tie. Five minutes later, the Knights' season essentially ended on a header by Kendra Bailey, who scored off Lexi Dunn's inside lob to put the game away 3-1.

"We didn't want to go to overtime," said Taylor. "We've had bad luck there."

Davis looked impressive the entire game, other than the lapse to end the first half. It had many scoring chances, but wasn't able to take advantage of them. as often as coach Phongsavath said he would have liked.

"That is the best they've played all year, other than finishing," Phongsavath said. "We need to work on patience but really just keep playing like we're playing."

5A quarterfinals

Davis 3, Lone Peak 1

Viewmont 3, Brighton 2 (OT)

Fremont 1, Bingham 0

Alta 3, Layton 1

5A semifinals

Tuesday at Juan DiegoViewmont (12-3-3) vs. Davis (17-2), 11 a.m.Fremont (15-1-2) vs. Alta (15-2-1), 1:15 p.m.