MA SOCCER CHAMPS: Boys team finally gets the blue plaque with historic win

Montgomery Academy’s Cade Seagars (17) leaps high to score a goal past keeper Owen Wells in the Eagles’ 2-1 victory over Oak Mountain in the 7A boys’ finals. (Courtesy AHSAA/David Holtsford

By TIM GAYLE

There’s a soccer wall in the Eagle Room at Montgomery Academy where nine championship plaques hang in honor of the girls soccer teams that have won state titles. There are no plaques for boys in that portion of the room.

“Every year since the seventh grade, we’ve walked into the Eagle Room and we’ve said, ‘We’re putting a picture on the wall,’” senior Chris Obenhaus said. “After all the years of not being able to do it, saying we’ll be able to put a picture on the wall is amazing. I want to tell my children one day, I want to tell everyone at the school we’ve done something that has never been done before.”

The Eagles made history last week by defeating Oak Mountain 2-1 to win the Class 7A state championship in boys soccer. It marks the first title for Montgomery Academy in boys soccer and the first in Class 7A -- where Competitive Balance Factor has placed MA boys and girls tennis and boys and girls soccer.

“We’ve been doubted all year,” senior Tanner Bartgis said. “We’re a small team playing in 7A. We heard ‘this team has no chance.’ All of our seniors came together and realized we have to win it all this year, we have to do whatever it takes.” 

In beating Oak Mountain, they defeated a team that has won 25 of its 31 postseason games as a 7A power over the last 11 seasons and has allowed opponents to score more than one goal just four times in those 31 games. Montgomery Academy took a quick 2-0 lead, stunning the high school soccer world, then held on for the win.

“All the pressure was on them,” Bartgis said. “Nobody ever would have expected us to win this game besides the players on this team. Having all the pressure on the other side allowed us to calm our nerves. As soon as we got the first goal, it gave us a feeling of belief. When the second goal came, everyone on that field knew this was our time.”

No one could have known at the beginning of the season that the Eagles would wind up with a championship trophy. The leading scorer from a year ago, Brewer Welch, was battling through a nagging knee injury. Another senior, Ethan Yi, was sidelined for the first month of the season with a knee injury.

“I thought I wasn’t going to finish this season because I partially tore my (medial collateral ligament) and dislocated my kneecap,” Yi said. “We thought it was an (anterior cruciate ligament) tear. The doctor said you’re probably not going to play the rest of the season.

“Looking back, how bad my knees were, then fast forward two or three months and we win a state championship, that’s amazing.”

Without Yi, with Brewer and fellow senior Cade Segars still playing basketball, the Eagles still found a way to win.

“At the beginning of the year, we had a tournament and we were playing the top of the top teams,” Obenhaus said. “We didn’t have Brewer, we didn’t have Cade, they were still playing basketball. The fact that we were still able to compete with those teams, our team realized we’ve got this. Once Brewer and Cade got back and we had everyone back on the team, it was game on from that point.”

The success came from a shared belief of the seven seniors -- Bartgis, Obenhaus, Yi, Welch, Segars, Will Veale and Ways Holloway.

“I don’t know if this was because I was a senior, but we all thought of leading our team so we just thought more highly of our team,” Yi said. “If we didn’t think highly as a leader, then the younger kids aren’t going to believe it.”

“Out of the five years I’ve played for MA soccer, this is the closest the team has ever been.”

It carried them into the postseason, but there was still one huge obstacle waiting in the championship game -- a team that was 29-0-1 in 2024 and 30-0 in 2025, that hadn’t lost a game since falling in the 2023 semifinals. As the Montgomery Academy players met the night before the game, head coach Gui Mondaini offered a few thoughts to the players on the impending matchup.

“I think it’s just understanding that respecting is different than being afraid,” Mondaini said. “We respected Oak Mountain. We respect all the teams that we play against, but we won’t be afraid of them. You’re playing against Oak Mountain, a great team, but they’re also high school boys. I think that’s the most important thing when facing a team that great.”

Montgomery Academy players were ready for the challenge, respecting but not fearing.

“We knew going into that game it was going to be a dogfight,” Segars said. “That’s an incredible team, incredible program, great players. But I think we just wanted it more. We had more heart. I think it was just a testament to our hard work and how much heart we had as a team.

“My take on it was I wasn’t scared of them at all, honestly. Coach helped us with this. They’re human just like us. They breathe just like we do. They hurt just like we do. It was just another game.”

Welch said Oak Mountain was “really the team that had something to lose with their 59-game unbeaten streak. We’re just trying to break that. That was our motivation.”

After claiming a 2-0 lead, Montgomery Academy would turn to its defense to hold off Oak Mountain the rest of the game. 

“It was probably the longest 70 minutes that I’ve ever played,” Welch observed.

Soon, there will be a boys soccer plaque in the Eagle Room with the names of the players under their picture. Not only did the Eagles make history with the school’s first state championship in the sport, they also became only the second team ever elevated to 7A by Competitive Balance Factor to win a championship in the state’s top division, joining 6A McGill-Toolen’s volleyball team in 2022.

“I can’t even fathom it right now,” Yi said. “I remember in the eighth grade, our coach, Coach Gabi (De Queiroz), we would be looking at all the banners (in the gym) and there’s just a gap for MA boys soccer. We finally put one up there. It means so much.”