The Washington Men’s Soccer team took home the program’s first national championship on Tuesday night with a 3-2 OT win over #15 North Carolina State. It marked the culmination of a remarkable run for the Huskies who had to win 6 straight games away from home in order to take home the title. That included a near true road win tonight with the College Cup host site of Cary, North Carolina less than 20 miles away from the NC State campus.
Washington managed to get on the board just before halftime when
the NC State keeper got caught a bit in no man’s land. A Washington player managed to just get to the ball before the keeper could corral it just outside the box and the resulting deflection went straight to Zach Ramsey who put it straight through on the first touch. That goal put the Huskies up with less than 90 seconds before halftime.
Washington added to their lead in the second half as Richie Aman looked at first like he had been driven to far to the side while trying to probe for an opening. But Aman managed to cross it in front of the goal just before being directed out of bounds and Joe Dale made a perfect cut it front of the net to get a foot on the ball in between two NC State defenders.
That goal put Washington out in front 2-0 with less than 30 minutes remaining in the match. It wasn’t a guarantee for the Huskies but things certainly appeared to be fairly well in hand. That feeling only lasted a matter of minutes before NC State got on the board to make it 2-1. The Wolfpack played aggressively searching for the equalizer and dominated possession down the stretch. That culminated in a well executed strike with just 3 minutes remaining to tie the game and send the hometown crowd into a frenzy.
The teams headed to overtime in a golden goal situation and it didn’t take long for Washington to take advantage. Harrison Bertos managed to just sneak one through on an assist from Egor Akulov to clinch the title for the Huskies less than 2 minutes into the extra period. The celebration had to be put on hold for a few minutes as the refs took a stressful look to see if there was any indication of offsides during the possession but finally the win was confirmed.
The victory for Washington marks the first official NCAA men’s title in school history. Men’s rowing is not an NCAA sanctioned sport and the football titles are recognized by the NCAA but were not during the playoff era and so the NCAA did not name an official champion in those years. The win also represents redemption for coach Jamie Clark who helped lead the Dawgs to the title game in 2021 where Washington ultimately fell to Clemson.
Washington started off the tournament with a 3-2 2OT win over Oregon State in Corvallis which avenged an earlier in the season loss to the Beavers. Then the Huskies pulled their first major upset by winning 1-0 at #5 SMU (that’s #5 overall seed, not a #5 seed like in the basketball tournament). Washington once again prevailed 1-0 in the Sweet 16 at #12 Stanford before besting #4 Maryland 3-1 in the Elite 8. That win also avenged an earlier loss at Maryland which decided the regular season Big Ten title. Finally, Washington clinched their spot in the title game with a 3-1 win over #16 Furman. That means the Huskies won 5 consecutive matches against top 16 teams with none of the wins coming down to penalty kicks.
