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MARIETTA - Unbelievable.

If there was one word to describe Walker's 3-1 win over Dublin in Friday's Class AA/A boys soccer state championship, that was it.

That's how many of the Wolverines' players and coaches described the victory after scoring three unanswered goals to claim their first state championship since the school played fall soccer in 1999 and complete an undefeated season at 21-0.

"This is going to take a while to sink in," said an emotional Walker coach Gary Blohm, minutes after a ceremonial bath of ice water from his players. "No words can describe what I'm feeling. We've focused all year on being a band of brothers. These kids worked so hard for this moment and I'm so proud of them."

Walker's leading scorer, Jordan Smith, added two more goals to his total and Rafi Berrios added another as the Wolverines' recovered from a 1-0 deficit early in the contest.

The Fighting Irish's Kenny Tanner put Dublin (13-6) on the scoreboard first in the 10th minute. Walker overplayed a deep ball and Tanner scored on a counter-attack, beating his defender and scored with a shot into the low post.

Following the goal, Dublin collapsed its defense for much of the first half, packing nine men in front of its goal when Walker was on offense, making it nearly impossible for the Wolverines to score.

"We knew it would be tough to score on them if we got down early," Blohm said of Dublin's defense. "Our scouting report was dead-on and Dublin worked that scheme to perfection. We just tried to bring the ball in from the outside and get shots from inside."

After Dublin defenders kicked out multiple Walker goal-scoring opportunites in the first half, Berrios sent a corner kick in to Ben Stegman, whose shot was deflected by a Dublin defender. The ball landed in front of Smith who fired and scored his second goal of the game in the 37th minute, tying the contest, 1-1, as the game headed into intermission.

The Wolverines came out in the second half and took the lead in the 58th minute behind Smith's one-on-one goal. Andreas Wilder fed a long pass to Smith, who out ran his defender and beat Dublin's goalkeeper into the right corner of the net for a 2-1 advantage.

Walker goalkeeper Jimmy McKean preserved the lead almost two minutes later when he jumped up and punched out Tanner's free kick shot from 40 yards out.

"This is a great feeling," McKean said about the win. "We were down early, but we came back to win. We knew we were the better team coming in, we just had to prove it."

The second score forced Dublin out of its collapsing defense, and Berrios added an insurance goal off a header with 6:35 left off Taylor Spear's corner kick. The Wolverines' defense continued to hold for the remainder of the contest and the championship celebration began when the clock hit 0:00.

"Everything starts with our goalkeeper, then works through our defenders, our midfielders and to me and the forwards," Smith said. "I can't do my job unless everyone else does their job. That's why we won state, because we're a team."

cwhite@mdjonline.com

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