UIL crowns four champions from Dallas-area at state soccer tournament

As far as high school sports in Texas are concerned, this academic year has belonged to the Dallas area.

Last December, Duncanville and DeSoto repeated as state football champions, while booming Anna won its first state title.

In March, three North Texas boys basketball programs won UIL state championships. Before Plano East, Lancaster and Oak Cliff Faith Family swept the boys state tournament’s three-largest classifications, two girls basketball programs - Duncanville and Frisco Liberty - won UIL state titles.

And this past week, D-FW teams dominated the UIL state soccer tournament in Georgetown.

The Celina girls soccer team won its third straight 4A state championship Thursday. Then on Saturday, the Frisco Wakeland and Prosper girls soccer programs won 5A and 6A state titles, respectively, to complete a sweep of the girls competition. This season marked the third straight in which Dallas-area girls soccer teams won in all three classifications.

Before Prosper defeated Austin Westlake for its first state championship, Midlothian’s boys team earned its first title by upending juggernaut Frisco Wakeland in the 5A state title game.

A Dallas-area soccer team has won a state title every year since 1983, when the UIL started crowning soccer state champions.

“There’s levels to this, and D-FW is at the top,” Prosper girls soccer coach Matt Dickinson said. “I can confidently say that. Look at the records. Look at the teams that have been winning state at all levels. You look at it, and D-FW dominates that. It is what it is, and it’s a credit to the amount of talented players we have.”

Four Dallas-area soccer programs won state championships, but nine made the trip to Georgetown. The Rockwall girls fell to Austin Westlake in the 6A state semifinals, and the Colleyville Heritage girls fell to Wakeland in the 5A state final.

Duncanville’s boys team, making its first state appearance since 1986, lost to defending state champ Katy Seven Lakes in the 6A boys state semifinals. Seven Lakes then beat Flower Mound 2-1 in overtime in the championship, preventing Flower Mound from claiming its second state title.

The Midlothian boys’ win over Wakeland particularly stood out. Wakeland had made nine state appearances in 14 years, winning titles in 2010, 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022. The prestigious boys soccer program first earned a state bid in 2010 and has won four titles under coach Andy Holt, who took over in 2016.

Making its fifth state tournament appearance and fourth since 2018, Wakeland’s girls team won its fourth state championship Saturday.

“D-FW soccer right now is just the epitome of soccer,” Wakeland girls coach Jimmie Lankford said. “There’s good soccer in Austin. There’s good soccer in other places, but D-FW — it’s just crazy how many good players there are.”

The state tournament featured several athletes bound for Division I schools.

Prosper junior Olivia Hess, a Baylor pledge, scored the game-winning goal in the 6A state championship game against Austin Westlake. Rice soccer and track signee Allie Love scored a goal in Colleyville Heritage’s dominant 4-1 win over Pflugerville Hendrickson in the 5A state semifinal. Flower Mound’s Landon DeLeeuw signed with Campbell.

Southlake Carroll star Kennedy Fuller did not play in the state tournament, but she did turn pro just before her 17th birthday. Carroll missed out on the state tournament this year, losing to Prosper in penalty kicks in the 6A Region I semifinals.

One could argue Carroll would have made the trip to Georgetown this season had it come out of any other region in Texas. The absence of a team of that caliber — and many others like it — on the biggest stage is just a testament to the elite high school soccer in North Texas.

“The kids play all the time. They play at a very high level outside of school,” Midlothian boys coach Austin Guest said of D-FW’s soccer prowess. “We’ve got a very big commitment from our schools. We’ve got middle school soccer. The seniors here are the first seventh-grade soccer players we had in middle school. I think all those things add together.”

On Twitter: @t_myah

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