NCHE Athletics: Cabarrus Claims State Championship in Boys Soccer

The 2013 NCHEAC Boys Soccer State Championship was held in Winston-Salem, October 18-19 at the Sara Lee Soccer Complex. Six teams competed in the tournament and seeding of those teams was based on regular season results. The regular season consisted of two conferences, east and west, with both conferences containing three teams each. In the west conference, the teams were Asheville, Cabarrus County and Forsyth County. Fayetteville and two teams from Wake County, East Wake and Northeast Wake made up the east conference. From the regular season results, Cabarrus and Northeast Wake each earned byes into the state semi-final round of the tournament. They both had to await the winners of the games that started on Friday morning, which involved the number two and number three seeds in each conference playing against each other. Number two Asheville defeated number three Forsyth, 4-0, in the west match up, and in the East contest, number two East Wake defeated number three Fayetteville, 4-2. On Friday afternoon in the state semi-finals, a rematch from the 2012 state title contest saw Asheville once again prevail as they defeated Northeast Wake, 3-0. Cabarrus then defeated East Wake 8-1 to advance to the championship game on Saturday afternoon. Asheville came in as the two-time defending champion, but Cabarrus had already defeated the Trailblazers once during the season and had taken them to overtime in the other regular season contest. The Cabarrus Stallions prevailed again as they defeated the Trailblazers, 5-2, to earn their first state title. Northeast Wake defeated East Wake in the consolation contest 6-2. All-tournament team members were: from Cabarrus, Zach Bailey, Michael Carter-Barkman, Joel Levinson, Andrew Moore and tournament MVP, Brian Stepanek; from Asheville, Matthew Batchelder, Corban Crosley, Phillip Gibson and Logan Woody; from Northeast Wake, Taylor Dougherty, Luke Miller and McKenzie Smith; from East Wake, Phillip Crapo and Matthew Whitlow; Nathan Stewart (Fayetteville); and Chase Crosby (Forsyth).

Photo captions:

2013 NCHEAC Boys Soccer State Champions (Cabarrus Stallions) L-R Front row: Brian Stepanek (MVP), Parker Sorensen, Joel Levinson, Ike Easterbrook, Christian Frey, Harper Hicks, Back row: Peter Williams (Coach), Andrew Moore, Zach Bailey, Marshall Frank, Mark Gossage, Tyler DeVlieger, Michael Carter-Barkman, Samuel Barker, Joey Desloge, Stan Brockinton, Justin Sweet

Tournament MVP Brian Stepanek of Cabarrus battling against Asheville in the state title contest