Marvin Ridge stops Chapel Hill, wins NCHSAA 7A state soccer title
Marvin Ridge overcame bitter disappointment in regulation Friday night and scored late in the second overtime for a 2-1 victory over Chapel Hill in the Class 7A boys’ soccer state championship.
The Mavericks (22-3-1), winning their fourth state title in school history, got the winning goal with 2:20 remaining in the second 10-minute overtime.
D.J. Smith started the winning play by preventing a ball from going out of bounds in the left corner. He was able to lob a pass to the front of the goal, where Collin McKee kicked the ball into the left side of the net.
McKee’s goal helped erase two painful memories for Marvin Ridge — one from a year ago, the other from Friday night.
A year ago, Marvin Ridge lost the 4A state championship match to Wakefield in a penalty kick shootout.
But perhaps an even more painful moment came in the closing seconds of regulation Friday night.
Marvin Ridge came within nine seconds of winning the state championship in regulation.
The Mavericks were nursing a 1-0 lead in the final minute and were trying to fend off Chapel Hill pressure. But the ball got away from two Maverick defenders, and Chapel Hill’s Gilbert Schmidler was able to push the ball past Marvin Ridge goalkeeper Ford Fehling.
It was one of only a few serious scoring opportunities for the Tigers in the second half.
“I hate giving up that goal,” Marvin Ridge coach Jason Zak said. “But the resilience of these guys is amazing.”
In a first half that featured end-to-end attacks by both teams, Marvin Ridge was the greater aggressor. The Mavericks nearly scored on five or six chances, but Chapel Hill goalkeeper Troy Casey and his defense held on.
What might have been the two biggest plays of the match came within a minute of each other in the first half.
In the 32nd minute, Chapel Hill (18-5) broke through the Mavericks’ defense, and Eliot Werley got off a blistering shot that sent Fehling sliding forward to stop.
Fehling passed the ball forward, and a couple of well-placed passes enabled Marvin Ridge to beat the Chapel Hill defense downfield. Junior Colton Perkins then beat Casey with a shot to the left side of the goal.
Before that, Marvin Ridge had three close calls in the 17th minute, including a shot by Perkins that Casey lunged to bat away.
The second half started at the same frenetic pace as the first, with the teams trading scoring opportunities. But the Marvin Ridge defense tightened up around the midway point of the half, and Chapel Hill’s chances were few and far between in the closing 20 minutes.
Zak said the Mavericks adjusted to Chapel Hill’s free-flow style.
“We were trying to disrupt that in the second half,” he said.
Afterward, Zak and his players talked about how a difficult schedule helped the Mavericks prepare for the grind of postseason.
“I tell these guys, ‘I’m not taking it easy on you,’” Zak said, referring to a schedule that included a number of difficult non-conference matches, plus the 12 difficult matches in the Southern Carolina 6A-7A Conference. That conference includes soccer powers like Cuthbertson, Charlotte Catholic and Porter Ridge.
“Playing tough games didn’t make it easy, but it helped us when we got here,” senior Davis Tackett said.
The Mavericks were 7-3-1 in late September after back-to-back losses to Myers Park and Weddington.
“Those two losses helped us become the team we were in the playoffs,” Tackett said.
This story was originally published November 21, 2025 at 10:12 PM.
