Members of the McCracken County High School boys’ soccer team weren’t exactly thrilled with a pair of regular-season losses to rival Marshall County earlier in 2026. The Mustangs were determined to do something about it in the postseason, and that’s exactly what happened.
After beating the Marshals 4-1 for the district championship last week, McCracken County played an almost flawless match Thursday night to defeat Marshall County 3-0, a victory that helped the Mustangs clinch their seventh regional title in 14 years and sixth in the last seven years in what has proven to be a dominant decade in boys’ soccer for McCracken County.
The Mustangs (12-11-2) advance to the first round of the state tournament on either Monday or Tuesday next week, where they will host Madisonville-North Hopkins.
Wiersema was pleased with his team’s hustle throughout the match. The Mustangs put the pressure on early and didn’t let up.
“We have GPS trackers on the players, and I’m sure a lot of them ran about seven miles tonight,” Wiersema said. “We work hard and we measure all of that stuff. They’re able to look at it and evaluate what they’ve done. It’s a pretty neat deal.”
Wiersema was especially pleased to see McKenzie provide most of the offense Thursday night.
“It’s nice when you have a sophomore step up like that,” Wiersema said of McKenzie. “He had some pretty nice passes to him as well to get those goals.”
Marshall County assistant coach Logan Davis said he was proud of his team’s effort Thursday night, but that McCracken County was “simply the better team.”
“Full credit to McCracken County. They came out and really brought it to us in the postseason,” Davis said. “I hate it for us because we had such a great season. But they brought the intensity to us, especially right from the start tonight. I’m really proud of the effort our boys gave, but McCracken played extremely well the last two times we faced them.”
Members of the first-team All-Region team squad announced Thursday night are: William O’Neill and Maks Hazel; Johnny Mendoza; Marshall County’s Carson Lovett and Lincoln Coluburn; Murray’s Brodie Morris, Micah White, Elias Houck, Tyce Gibson and Henri Acreman Nyamwala; and Paducah Tilghman’s Nolan Black.