winning 1-0 in overtime<\/a> with a goal from star forward Parker Glenn. This time around, both championship games in the state\u2019s largest classification will feature local teams.<\/p>\nDallas certainly has a case to make when it comes to high school boys soccer. But while the area\u2019s 5A teams have captured four state titles over the past five seasons \u2014 including two by powerhouse Frisco Wakeland \u2014 the drought for 6A dates back to Lewisville Flower Mound in 2019. Taking out the canceled pandemic playoffs, that streak has officially been extended to six straight seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it being Houston on Houston for the second year in a row is sort of a testament to where the best soccer in Texas is being played these days,\u201d Garner said. \u201cRight now, it is in Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Atascocita's]()
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Atascocita’s Julian Sanchez (9) reacts after scoring his second goal during the first half of a Class 6A boys UIL state semifinal match at Cy-Fair FCU Stadium, Friday, April 3, 2026, in Cy-Fair.<\/p>\n
Jason Fochtman\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
What\u2019s unique about this year\u2019s Houston-area qualifiers is their lack of history on this stage. Summer Creek, College Park, Atascocita and Royal have never played in state championship games before.<\/p>\n
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Summer Creek is in the midst of a massive turnaround campaign after winning just two district games last season. First-year coach Parker O\u2019Quinn, whose hometown Forney is just east of Dallas, said his players feel an immense amount of pride in representing Houston at the state level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of pride that goes behind it because these kids, all they hear is about Dallas and how good Dallas soccer is and FC Dallas and all this stuff,\u201d O\u2019Quinn said. \u201cSo they\u2019re putting Houston on the map and not just on the high school scale, but on the recruiting scale. I think that\u2019s big for these kids who are juniors and seniors and are trying to get recruited and go play at the next level. I think it\u2019s a huge opportunity for Houston and these kids to showcase how much talent is down here and the style of play and the physicalness and the ability that there is down here everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Summer Creek only has seven seniors, and only three of them are starters. So could this be the beginning of some sustained excellence for the Bulldogs? O\u2019Quinn certainly believes so and said this season has revealed the blueprint for how the program can avoid the \u201cone-hit-wonder\u201d label.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis season is one I don\u2019t think that they\u2019ll forget,\u201d O\u2019Quinn said of his players. \u201cIt\u2019s a program changing season and a culture changing season. But we have good kids, smart kids, and they\u2019re good players. So the idea wasn\u2019t that we needed new kids. It was that we needed to build from within and really figure out an identity and a culture behind what we wanted to do. That\u2019s what we focused on when I got here. Could we build a culture? Could we get the buy-in? And could we make the boys really enjoy each other and play for each other? Luckily, we\u2019ve been able to do those things.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the opposite side of the Houston area in Brookshire, just 10 minutes west of Katy, Royal has built some solid soccer infrastructure as well. The Falcons would certainly like to put a tally in the win column for Houston, but they take more pride in representing their school, community and families.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t think (the players) care too much about the rivalry of Houston versus Dallas or any other city,\u201d said coach Christian Guzman, who graduated from Royal in 2013. \u201cThey\u2019re just mainly community based and just want to make their families proud. Their pride for that is just extremely high.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite those sentiments, Guzman also said it\u2019s hard not to notice Houston\u2019s recent prowess. Royal (28-1-1) will take on Bridgeport (21-3) on Thursday night with a chance to become the area\u2019s first 4A soccer state champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you can definitely see the growth that\u2019s happening in the Houston area,\u201d he said. \u201cI have family in Dallas, so I go up there a lot, and when I\u2019m in Dallas, I can\u2019t drive five miles without seeing a soccer field. When you come to Houston, you don\u2019t see that. But I just feel that the growth of soccer is happening, and it was just a matter of time until the Houston area started to compete with the Dallas area or the San Antonio area or Austin area. You can see that the city is starting to bridge that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n
While high school boys soccer appears to be on the upswing in Houston, the girls are still aiming for their first UIL state championship since Memorial won the 6A crown in 2018. Since then, Tompkins (2019), Ridge Point (2023) and Stratford (2025) have all come close to the ultimate prize before finishing as state runners-up.<\/p>\n
Kingwood (26-0-2) and Lake Creek (17-6-2) have an opportunity to end the drought this week, but they will have to take down Dallas teams Forney (28-1) and Grapevine (18-5-6), respectively, to do so. Dallas claimed both 6A titles last year and won five straight in the unified 6A bracket before that with Lewisville Marcus, Coppell, Southlake Carroll and Lewisville Flower Mound all getting into the mix. Grapevine, Frisco Wakeland and Highland Park have all won 5A titles since 2019, and Celina will try to win a fifth straight championship in 4A this week, something that\u2019s never been done.<\/p>\n
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Not many state title-winning teams finish their seasons unbeaten. Kingwood, Smithson Valley (28-0) and Prosper Walnut Grove (30-0) are the only three teams, boys or girls, to enter this week\u2019s matches without a loss. For the Mustangs, who won state titles in 1995 and 1999, the goal has been less about keeping that unblemished record intact and more about peaking at the right time.<\/p>\n
Now they have a chance to make some history for their program and for Houston as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s been all about just staying together, believing in each other, being positive the entire time, especially early in the year when there\u2019s not really a reward at the end of the tunnel,\u201d Kingwood coach Adam Bell said following his team\u2019s regional final win over Tompkins. \u201cI remember just telling them, \u2018Hey, just trust the process. We\u2019re going to get there.\u2019 It\u2019s been a three-year build for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Atascocita head coach Jed Garner reacts after being dunked with water after the team\u2019s Class 6A boy UIL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-590717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}