Aidan Morrison walked three steps back, paused, took a deep breath and looked through the wall at his target 30-yards out.

It’s something Morrison had done hundreds of times, that he had spent hours practicing and honing his craft on, but this was the biggest moment he had ever taken a free kick in.

Nothing phased Morrison in that moment, not the crowd noise, not the opposing team, not the significance of the chance.

Morrison released his breath, ran up to the ball and bang. It sailed through the air, curled around the wall of defenders, went past the goalkeeper and found the lower right hand corner of the net in extra time, giving Seven Lakes a 2-1 lead in the 97th of Saturday’s Class 6A State Championship as the Spartans went on to beat Flower Mound 2-1 in extra time to secure back-to-back state championships.

“I just had to relax,” Morrison said. “I know I have the ability and I know that I’m capable of doing it, but I had to get myself ready. Once I was able to do that I was confident. I knew it was going in. It was just an amazing feeling.”

Seven Lakes dominated for much of the game, but got forced to extra time from one Flower Mound moment. The Spartans got their first big chance of the match 16 minutes in when Kortay Koc got past the defense and lifted a cross to the back post that SeanCarlos Rivera just missed out on connecting with. 

Seven Lakes kept pressing into the second half and found its goal in the 48th minute when a rebound fell to Noa Stasic, who volleyed a laser of a shot past the Flower Mound keeper and into the net. 

“Noa just plays for every guy out there,” said Seven Lakes head coach Jimmy Krueger. He plays for his friends and his second family and you could see it tonight, he gave us every single bit of himself, he’s just a special player and such a nuisance for opposing teams. But the biggest thing is he has such love for his teammates out there.”

The Spartans nearly found a second just a few minutes later when Kortay Koc got past the defense, but a kick save from the Flower Mound keeper kept the Seven Lakes advantage to one. Seven Lakes continued to press and try and find a second, but Flower Mound got an equalizer against the run of play in the 69th minute when they got a throw in deep in Seven Lakes territory and a long throw found Carter Simpson, who found the net from just outside the 6-yard box.

“We score goals,” Krueger said. “That’s the one thing we didn’t want to give up was a long throw in goal, but when we did everyone just flipped a switch and said ‘ok lets go get the winner.’”

Flower Mound tried to get the game to penalties once it went to extra time, but Seven Lakes kept pushing and they got their reward when Koc was fouled in the 97th minute, with Morrison scoring the game winning goal from 30-yards out. 

“So much emotion just came through as soon as Aiden scored that goal,” Stasic said. “There was no doubt in any of our minds, I walked up to Aiden and he just looked at me and said ‘this is going in,’ and I just knew. Watching that goal go in was the best feeling.”

This Spartans senior class will be one that’s sorely missed. It’s a senior class that went to three straight state tournaments and won back to back state titles. It’s a class that every future team will have the challenge trying to meet the expectations of. But for these seniors this was the defining moment, they helped create a dynasty and they cemented their place in history on Saturday, becoming the first ever Class 6A boys team to win back to back state titles. 

“It’s unreal, with these guys by my side it just makes it so much better,” said Morrison, who was named the games MVP. “They’re some of my best friends I have ever made in my whole life. To go out on top is absolutely unreal. It’s perfect, that’s the only way to put it, perfect.”