NC State men's soccer falls to Washington in first-ever national championship appearance

CARY — After dominating its way through most of the season, NC State found itself in a rare situation in the College Cup Final: trailing at halftime. 

The Wolfpack isn’t a team used to even conceding first — it did that just three times all year — but it found itself down a tally to Washington after the first 45 minutes after standout defender Nikola Markovic misplayed a header in front of the 18-yard box. That forced senior goalkeeper Logan Erb to try to clear it himself, but he misfired and the Huskies capitalized as Zach Ramsey scored on the open frame. 

Although the data pointed to NC State not being able to overcome the early deficit as it was 0-2-1 when down after halftime — a deficit that soon ballooned to 2-0 in the 62nd minute — the Wolfpack was able to fight its way back to level the score by the 87th minute after goals from junior forward Donavan Phillip and senior midfielder Taig Healy to force overtime. 

But even though the Pack found a way to battle back to level the score, Washington’s Harrison Bertos scored the game-winning goal just 1:54 into overtime as Washington edged No. 15 NC State 3-2 in the national championship match in front of a pro Wolfpack crowd at WakeMed Soccer Park on Monday night.

The result ended the Pack’s impressive run through the NCAA Tournament, which featured a pair of shutouts to open its stay in the field before it earned a gritty road victory at Georgetown to punch its ticket to its second-ever College Cup appearance. 

NC State proceeded to knock off Saint Louis on Friday night to mark its deepest run in program history by making the championship match, doing so under second-year coach Marc Hubbard. But the Wolfpack ran out of scoring against the Huskies as Washington nearly limited NC State to its lowest goal total in its last seven matches, dating back to its 1-1 draw with Syracuse in the regular season finale on Halloween. 

The Pack, which is usually the more aggressive team on the pitch, met its match as the Huskies were able to control the possession for a lot of the second half and practically the entire overtime period to earn the victory.

While it seemed like Washington was going to blank NC State, Phillip scored his Division-I leading 19th goal of the season as the Pack peppered the net in the 66th minute to cut the Pack’s deficit in half. It gave the Wolfpack life for the final 24 minutes of game action with the crowd living and dying by each attacking chance on the frigid 25-degree North Carolina winter night.

As Huskies goalkeeper Jadon Bowton held his ground for much of the night, NC State continued to throw shots towards him on his line with six attempts down the stretch until Healy fired a missile through the defense to equalize the contest in the 87th minute.

But despite the quality effort to level the score, the Huskies were able to beat Erb with a goal from nifty passing in the box to hand the Pack just its third loss of the 2025 campaign.

Its raucous crowd of 10,316 donning the program’s red and white was able to will the Wolfpack over the hump, but it fell just short in extra time.

NC State’s quest for its first national championship will have to wait another season.