Hail the Demons!

The Fike girls soccer team completed its four-year run through the 3-A NEW 6 Conference without a loss after Friday's 3-1 defeat of Rocky Mount in the tournament championship.

That's quite a feat to win 48 straight matches, many by lopsided scores. Granted, Rocky Mount made it interesting the past couple of years and nearly hung that first loss on the Golden Demons a couple of times. I remember back in 2006 when Fike blew past everyone, even slamming a pretty good Gryphons squad 10-0 in Wilson. Then Rocky Mount coach Patrick Sensiba intimated that Fike's dominance wouldn't last forever. He could be forgiven since that was the senior seasons of star players Sarah Winslow and Dillon Sauls. Winslow set a state scoring record that year before moving onto Wake Forest University and Sauls has become a standout at Barton College

But Toni Varacchi keeps churning out talented, college-bound players, many of whom show up at Fike with pretty strong skill sets, having gone through the Wilson Recreation Department and Wilson Youth Soccer Association ranks. But give Varacchi credit, she takes good players and makes them better.

The Demons' task will be more difficult over the next four years. The NEW 6 turns into the Big East Conference and outgoing member SouthWest Edgecombe is being replaced by Fike's archrival Hunt, which beat the Demons last year.

With Rocky Mount and Northern Nash always having strong programs, it may not be long before one of them finally gets Fike. But four years in a conference without a loss is pretty impressive and Fike can say it never lost a NEW 6 match.