THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 30, 1995 TAG: 9505300135
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LEE TOLLIVER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Despite sometimes-vicious jolts from heading soccer balls at teammates or at the opposition's goal, Matt Wilbricht appears to have suffered no ill effects.
Nope . . . his noggin takes a kicking and keeps on ticking.
Wilbricht says soccer is a thinking man's game, and the Cox senior ought to know. He's a thinking man's thinking man.
He's the kind of player a coach depends on to see things on the field and make appropriate decisions, some requiring split-second action.
``He'll come over to me and I'll get ready to say something and he'll say exactly what I was going to say,'' Cox coach Jim Snodgrass said. ``You like to have guys like that - who know what you want when you want it - guys who also have the physical ability to execute.''
Wilbricht backs up his coach's praise with 4.143 grade-point average and 6-foot-2 size. He is a co-captain of the basketball team and recently was named to The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star's Scholastic Achievement Team.
The senior class valedictorian's academic accomplishments are too many to mention. Simply put, he has smarts on top of smarts. And he'll need every bit of them when his Falcons (13-3-2) take on two-time defending Group AAA state champion Hylton tonight at 8 in a state quarterfinal game in Woodbridge.
Cox lost, 4-0, to Hylton in last year's state championship.
The Falcons know they can play with the Bulldogs. The teams tied, 2-2, in the Kickoff Classic earlier this season.
``That gives us some confidence,'' Wilbricht said. ``We know we can hang with them. We've played them before, and it's not like they have any surprises for us.
``We're looking at this as, `Hey, we have to play them sometime.' Maybe it's better to go ahead and play them now. Maybe that way, we can catch them off guard.''
It isn't likely. Hylton may be the strongest team the state has ever seen, featuring nearly an entire lineup of starters and reserves who also play on their age-group state teams - players who have been together for years on select teams that are the current State Cup champions and runner-ups in their age groups.
But Wilbricht is too smart to let any of that faze him. He knows that high school soccer is different. It's more physical and, because of the smaller fields, the action is less individualistic.
But he also knows that Hylton is a great team.
``We're pretty good, too,'' he said. ``We were playing great at the beginning of the season and had a bit of a lull for a while. But we're playing very well again, and maybe losing to Lafayette will spark us to play better. We'll have to.''
Once soccer is over and he's given his graduation speech, Wilbricht will prepare himself for business administration studies at the University of North Carolina as a member of the school's honors program.
Soccer will take a back seat for a while.
``But I want to stay involved,'' he said. ``Sports have been a big part of my life. The thinking stuff and the sports kind of helped each other.''
Tonight at Hylton, the combination will be greatly needed. by CNB