How NC State men’s soccer reached the national championship match in Marc Hubbard’s second season

Marc Hubbard sat in his office inside NC State’s Weisiger-Brown building last August, just nine months removed from being hired by Wolfpack Athletic Director Boo Corrigan, with a sense of confidence. 

He had experience in flipping struggling teams into contenders, doing so at both Division II Southern New Hampshire and at the University of New Hampshire, through the first 16 years of his career. Hubbard guided the Wildcats to the NCAA Tournament seven times, including four America East Tournament titles, in his nine-season D-I run, so winning was an expectation. 

The fact that NC State, a program with a rich soccer past, had missed the NCAA Tournament in each of the previous four seasons before his arrival didn’t scare Hubbard. Instead, he had ambitions of not only competing in the ACC, college soccer’s premier conference, but doing so on the national level. 

After all, he had seen the Wolfpack men’s and women’s basketball teams each go to the Final Four just before he was hired, while the women’s cross country team built a dynasty with three straight national championships from 2021-2023 and baseball went to the 2024 College World Series. 

Hubbard wondered why his program couldn’t be the next to do so.

“I think it was time to make a move to a program that I think could make a real difference right away in a department that really supports athletics [and] that can give its men’s soccer program a chance to compete legitimately for national championships every single year,” Hubbard told TheWolfpacker.com in August 2024. “You don’t have to look far within the department to see other sports and their success. There’s good reason to believe that men’s soccer can do it as well.”

Fast forward 16 months later, and well, Hubbard followed through on his goal. Not only did he help take the Wolfpack to the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 16 in year one, which was the team’s furthest run since 1992, he one-upped it this season. NC State reached the College Cup for the first time in 35 years after earning the No. 15 national seed. 

And now? The Wolfpack is set to play for its first-ever national championship against Washington on Monday night at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. It’s likely to be another sea of red and white as the Pack’s fan base sold-out its 2-1 semifinal win over Saint Louis on Friday, and Hubbard as NC State 90 minutes away from history.

While the 44-year-old coach has guided the Wolfpack to the cusp of lifting the first title in program history, it’s not by happenstance that Hubbard has been successful. The past two seasons have been filled with his intentional approach and several learning lessons along the way. It all has culminated in the deepest postseason run in NC State men’s soccer history.

Establishing a winning culture, roster

Hubbard isn’t used to losing. Through his first 16 years as a collegiate head coach, he’d only dropped more than four games in a respective season just twice. And despite moving up a weight class to play in the ACC, the coach wasn’t ready to turn in his first sub-.500 campaign of his career. 

So as he took over the Pack program, which lost at least seven games in each of the previous quartet of seasons under George Kiefer, Hubbard knew he needed to install his culture within the program. It’s a critical part of building a team, Hubbard believed, so getting that rolling as soon as possible was integral to his ambition of turning the program around on a dime. 

“Culture is really important. It’s something that we talk about and build every day. It’s not just something that happens naturally,” Hubbard said. “Since we arrived, our staff has talked about finding our voice and what our identity and culture will be going forward. Part of that identity is to play a style that is fun, so scoring goals is fun and winning games is fun. 

“Every day is built around creating those attacking chances and becoming a better soccer player. At the same time, it’s really focusing on becoming a better human and holding each other accountable with those standards.”

While putting a new team culture in place was imperative, all the way down to critiquing goal-scoring celebrations to interact with the fans, so was building a roster. Hubbard released 11 players after his first spring in Raleigh, adding from the transfer portal aplenty. Bringing in players with winning backgrounds was key, but so was finding the right personalities that fit what the Wolfpack wanted to do. 

Experience is the best teacher, which made the portal important. Hubbard, who guided NC State to a 10-5-5 mark last fall, has 12 transfers on this season’s roster. Outside of that dozen players, seven are freshmen that came in Hubbard’s first full recruiting class while just six players remain from the 2023 squad. 

Although Hubbard flipped the batch of players in a short timeframe, he knew it would be necessary to win. But he also prided himself on doing it with respect for each player in the process. 

“There hasn’t been a lot of shrapnel in the turnover, I think we’ve done things the right way,” Hubbard said. “People understand, they’re given plenty of chances and overcommunicated in these scenarios.”

While the transfer portal is an asset for Hubbard and his staff, they weren’t focused on finding players that wanted to be paid. It wasn’t the process that they wanted to go down, rather they kept the team’s culture at the forefront, while selling an opportunity to develop under the staff as the program dreamed of winning a national championship. 

Hubbard wanted his resume to do the talking, especially since he and his staff were able to do more with less at New Hampshire.

“We were able to sustain success over multiple years, so coming here with the external support and everything NC State provides its men’s soccer program along with the pool of scholarships,” Hubbard said, “there’s plenty there to be successful and continue to do what we’re doing year in and year out.”

Senior goalkeeper Logan Erb, who transferred in from San Diego State ahead of Hubbard’s first season in Raleigh, knew this was going to be a rebuild. The Pack’s coach didn’t shy away from that, but he was more than willing to be a pioneer to help flip the program’s trajectory in a hurry.

“Every team that I’ve been a part of, that’s how it was — it was always about leaving the program in a better place,” said Erb, who has anchored the team’s nation-leading 15 shutouts this fall. “He gave me the platform and he sold me this dream of where he thinks the program could go.”

Hubbard deployed a similar message to junior forward Donavan Phillip, who transferred from Oakland ahead of last season. He was used all over the field with the Grizzlies, including some as a defender, but Hubbard had a plan to help develop Phillip into a goal scorer. 

The native of Castries, Saint Lucia, quickly bought into Hubbard’s confident recruiting pitch in the transfer portal.

“He told me where the program is right now and his plan. He was confident that in the next two or three years, we were going to be the best team in the country,” said Phillip, who has netted 18 goals to pace the Wolfpack this season. “I was a little skeptical coming in because NC State wasn’t my top option, but when I came on my visit and meeting [Hubbard] in person, I committed on the spot. I knew this was the place for me and I knew it was going to be special.”

Of NC State’s usual starting 11, eight are transfers, including three from New Hampshire — forward Ibrahim Conde, midfielder Taig Healy and defender Isaac Heffess — that helped install Hubbard’s culture even faster. 

Turning point of NC State’s 2025 season

NC State cruised through its first nine matches without allowing a goal to become the final team in Division I to concede a tally to an opposing squad. Pitt’s Arnau Vilamitjana ended that run in the 12th minute on Sept. 26, but those opening games set the tone for the season.

After all, the Wolfpack turned in a +33 goal differential in the regular season as it went 11-1-4 before embarking on a postseason run. 

But sometimes a setback is needed. For NC State, that arrived in the ACC Tournament Quarterfinals. Syracuse, who played the Wolfpack to a 1-1 draw to close the regular season, arrived back in Raleigh with a purpose in the postseason. The Orange scored three second-half goals to bounce the Pack from the conference tournament well before it had envisioned in its pursuit for a league title.

For the first time all season, the Pack had conceded more than one goal in a given game (it conceded just four the entire regular season). It wasn’t a feeling that the team was used to, in a way, serving as a wake-up call.

“We put ourselves in a situation after the second Syracuse game where it felt like our season was over,” Hubbard said. “I think that was a good moment for us to reflect and regroup, fine tune some things and reset our mentality into a great spot for this run.”

NC State’s leadership group called a players-only meeting to air grievances. This was a team that felt as though it could make a special run, but in order to do that, everyone had to be on the same page. Not panicking when an opposing shot finds the back of the net is key, even after the Pack turned in 20 shots of its own (10 on frame) in that shutout loss.

There was a certain standard that the Pack needed to carry into the NCAA Tournament. And the Syracuse game needed to be a one-off for that to be the case, in the player’s eyes.

“We went through the whole season not giving up nearly as many goals as other teams,” Erb said. “One issue that we had was figuring out how to win when we did concede. We took the two Syracuse games in stride and sat down with each other, we were open and honest with how we felt.”

Added Phillip:  “We took it as a learning lesson, knowing that our season wasn’t over and we had the national tournament coming after it. We looked at it from a striker’s perspective: we had a bunch of chances and the ball didn’t fall behind the net. We’re going to have nights like that, but then how we go from there [is important]. It’s more of learning from what that happened in the Syracuse game and not letting it happen ever again.”

NC State used that experience to weather a storm at Georgetown in the Round of 16. The Wolfpack took a quick 2-0 lead in the first 10 minutes before the Hoyas cut into the lead with a tally in the 35th minute. Though it could have added pressure to the Wolfpack’s roster, the team played calm and collected, earning its third goal just 1:43 of game time later as Carlos Santamaria netted the would-be game-winner in the 3-2 win. 

The Pack pitched a second-half shutout as the Hoyas chased the equalizer across the final 45 minutes. That performance not only punched NC State’s ticket to the College Cup, but it proved that the Wolfpack had grown from its disappointing showing against Syracuse when opposing teams do end up beating the team’s elite defense and goalkeeper.

“I think Georgetown was a big testament to how these guys can turn around and we can win games,” Erb said. “We can concede and still outscore teams.”

Chasing a championship

After knocking off Saint Louis, a 10-time national champion, in the semifinals in front of a raucous NC State-leaning crowd on Friday night, the Wolfpack walked into the postgame press conference with a sense of confidence. 

It’s a team that has believed it was good enough to win a national championship for most of the season, but it proved that it was worthy to play in the game after its gritty victory over the Billikens. The trio of Hubbard, Healy and Phillip were business-like, embracing what they had just done, while also quickly focusing on Washington.

Hubbard joked that he had zoned out during the players’ portion of the press conference as he was thinking about the Huskies already. Phillip, meanwhile, felt like the hard-fought College Cup win proved that the Wolfpack was ready for anything. 

“I know for a fact that if we get one or two [goals],” Phillip said, “then there’s no team in the country that can come back on us.”

Saint Louis couldn’t overcome a 2-0 deficit. Now, NC State has one final test with Washington up next. The Pack hopes to sing its postgame celebratory song, just as it has done after each of its last four NCAA Tournament victories, on the pitch in Cary. 

But Phillip is hoping to see Hubbard’s tears of joy with the team’s first-ever national title by the end of the night.

“You can see how much it means to him,” Phillip said. “We know he puts everything on the line for us. He’s one of the most-passionate coaches, and we want to give him a national championship.”