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MATTAWAN — The Edwardsburg boys’ soccer team became a family this fall. 

That’s how long-time head coach Sean Jesse summed up the progress the Eddies made on the field during the 2025 season. 

Edwardsburg’s season came to an end with a 4-1 Division 2 regional championship loss Thursday to Hudsonville Unity Christian at Mattawan High School.

Edwardsburg finished 17-2-1, including winning an outright Wolverine Conference championship, along with a district title and earned the school’s first-ever regional win with a 2-1 shootout victory over Plainwell on Tuesday. 

Unity Christian, which improves to 18-0-4, advances to the state semifinals Wednesday, October 29 where the Crusaders take on Cedar Springs at Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern. 

“I’m so proud of this team. We went 72 days without a loss, since August 17. That’s phenomenal in its own right, but the family culture these guys developed is what I’m most proud of,” Jesse said.

The Eddies built that culture with the assistance of 10 seniors. Playing in their final match for Edwardsburg were Hayden Hiemstra, Tanner Krah, Maverick Gates, Austin Leak, Will Hafner, Mobius Stubblefield, Maxton Welsh, Tyler Petruska, Gavin Roe and Sebastiano Caporate. 

“It starts with our senior class. They have been phenomenal and they bought into what the coaches have instilled into them. We are here because of our Seniors. Everyone else on the team saw the example they set and kind’ve say, hey I want to do that too,” Jesse said. 

Despite losing a large group of seniors, Edwardsburg features a fairly young roster with several sophomore and junior starters in the lineup.

“We want our younger guys to come into next season with the same expectations that we’re going to be here again,” Jesse said. “Our underclassmen have to believe they can keep that culture going.”

It took Edwardsburg a bit to adjust to Unity Christian’s quickness in transition during the opening minutes of the first half. 

Unity Christian went in front 1-0 on a goal by senior midfielder Jack VanEyk at the 33:26 mark. 

The Crusaders would then increase their advantage to 2-0 before halftime with a goal off the foot of sophomore forward Jaden Briseno at 6:32. 

“I think those first five minutes were a little eye-opening to us. Unity Christian is fast-paced and move the ball very well. It took us around 10 minutes to get ourselves into the game and we were competitive once we settled in, but we had already dug ourselves a bit of a hole,” Jesse said. 

Senior forward Cody Walters extended the Crusaders’ lead to 3-0 just seconds into the final half with a goal past Eddies’ netminder Law Gates at 39:12. 

Edwardsburg scored its lone goal when Chance Jacobs blasted a shot past Unity Christian junior goalie Alen Deppe at 33:50 with Haverick Gates racking up the assist for the Eddies. 

Walters scored Unity Christian’s final goal of the evening with 8:37 remaining. 

“I’ve been around soccer for 36 years. Unity Christian is a very good soccer team, one of the best I’ve seen. They do a great job of transitioning and getting bodies around the ball. We knew what they liked to do and planned for that, but they are very good at speeding you up and putting pressure on you. Even though we worked on defending that, they were just more successful. They are quicker in transition so that made it difficult for us to counter against it,” Jesse said. 

Unity Christian had 17 shots on goal to eight for Edwardsburg. Each team had two corner kicks. 

Law Gates finished the match with 13 saves in goal for Edwardsburg. Deppe recorded four saves in the net for Unity Christian. 

“I think a big thing we wanted to do as a team was to come out and pressure them (Edwardsburg) a lot on their half of the field and keep the ball there. We did that well from the beginning of the match and that just set the tone for our offense in creating some chances. This group of kids we have are real technical players who have played together for a while. They have confidence and have some creativity with the ball,” Unity Christian head coach Ian Billin said.