Nine Dallas-Fort Worth teams are headed to the UIL state soccer championships this week in Georgetown
Michael Hogue
Scan the recent history of Texas high school soccer state champions and you’ll notice a bubble concentrated around the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs.
What’s more, nearly all of the area’s soccer powerhouses are located above Interstate 30. That’s the case this year, too, with nine Dallas-Fort Worth teams headed to the UIL state championships this week in Georgetown.
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Of course, there are exceptions. Forney and Sunnyvale, to the east of Dallas and below I-30, are competing for girls championships this week, and Mesquite made a championship game last season on the boys side.
But by and large, the pool of success is with D-FW. The region has claimed 18 state champions out of a possible 36 over the last five seasons.
Over the last 20 years, the D-FW area has sent 99 teams in total to a state final in girls or boys soccer, but only eight are located below I-30, and the Kennedale girls are the only team to have won, in both 2015 and 2016.
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On the girls side, 11 of the area’s winningest state title programs are all north of I-30. In boys soccer, eight of the teams with the most state titles are above the highway.
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The northern Dallas suburbs have been able to control Texas high school soccer for so long for what might be an obvious reason to those familiar with the landscape — they’ve become the epicenter of club soccer in the state.
“Most of us play club soccer, so everybody here knows the pressure,” Forney goalkeeper Cinnamon Hurst said after her team’s first-ever state semifinal win on Saturday. “Everybody’s familiar with the high pressure and the energy that this crowd brings, kind of just lifting us up, and we’re able to just play together and kind of just do our thing.”
But it’s not just that they play club soccer, it’s the quality of the area’s players.
“There are a lot of kids that play a lot of club here, and it’s a lot of high-level club,” Frisco Wakeland girls soccer head coach Jimmie Lankford said. “There are a lot of really good teams and we’re playing against them, and our kids play against them year-round. They know each other.”
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Prosper Walnut Grove midfielder Mason Kutch (8) shoots the ball ahead of Frisco Reedy’s Ansel Rosato (25) during the first half of a UIL Class 5A Region II Bi-district playoff game, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, in Little Elm, Texas.
Elías Valverde II/Staff Photographer
Deep club soccer history
The old guard of North Texas youth soccer programs includes FC Dallas’ academy in Frisco, Solar SC in Allen and clubs such as Dallas Texans and Sting. Even newer franchises, such as Dallas Trinity (USLS) and Atlético Dallas (USL), have established youth soccer programs.
And while some players may not play club until high school, kids in the northern suburbs of Dallas can participate from as young as nine years old.
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Recent history of the Dallas Cup, a prestigious annual youth tournament that includes teams from all over the world, further reflects the potency of Dallas-area club teams. Over the last 20 years, 67 teams from Dallas have won divisional championships while only six Texas teams from outside the area have claimed titles.
The year-round aspect of soccer, even outside of UIL competition, has made it to where families find it more manageable to simply move closer to where the club facilities are, thus pushing them further north of that I-30 corridor into neighboring cities like Prosper, Frisco and even as far north as Celina.
“That’s kind of across the board,” Prosper Walnut Grove boys head coach Trent Kutch said. “Most of your powerhouse club teams are in this area, and this is where most of them train, so it’s a heck of a lot closer.”
Kutch said part of his reason for moving north from Red Oak was to be closer to his son’s practices. Mason Kutch, the reigning Gatorade Texas Boys Soccer Player of the Year, plays for the Solar SC U19 team and is a DePaul men’s soccer signee.
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“If you’re wanting your kids around the best teams and those clubs, you’re kind of having to either travel this way a lot,” Trent Kutch said. “Four to five times, three to four practices a week, plus your games, or you’ve got to move that way.”
Prosper Walnut Grove players cheer teammate Wheeler Clayton after being announced as the MVP of the Wildcats’ 3-2 overtime victory over San Antonio Southwest to claim the state title. The two teams played their Class 5A Division l boys state soccer championship match at Birkelbach Field in Georgetown, on April 11, 2025.
Steve Hamm/Special Contributor
Soccer success for new D-FW schools
What’s resulted is newer programs such as Walnut Grove, which started playing UIL competition only two seasons ago, quickly finding success. Trent Kutch’s team won its first state title last season on the boys side, and this year, both the girls and boys teams are playing for 5A Division I titles, against Comal Smithson Valley and College Station, respectively. The Walnut Grove boys roster is composed of athletes who mostly played junior varsity last season. But the 30-0 team hasn’t lost since 2024.
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“This is a whole other team that had to watch last year’s team and have to try to live into those standards that the previous team set,” Trent Kutch said. “They just haven’t let the group down.”
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Since opening in 2006, Frisco Wakeland has won 11 total state championships in soccer. No other program has half as many during that span. Lankford has won three titles himself since taking over in 2018.
“There’s no secrets in North Texas, so you have to learn to beat the person that you’ve played against for four years,” Lankford said. “So it comes down a lot of times to just a scheme, or it comes down to just a will or guts to do it, because there are so many really good players.”
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Celina is aiming for an historic five-peat in girls soccer on Thursday, the first of its kind. The Walnut Grove boys are aiming for back-to-back championships on Friday. Forney, Keller, Lake Dallas and Sunnyvale are all looking for their first titles. With nine teams competing over the next three days in Georgetown, this week is another opportunity for the region to further establish its dominance in youth soccer in Texas.