The path for the Orange Middle School women’s soccer team winning the 2026 OPAC Championship didn’t merely start three years ago, when the Chargers captured its first of three straight Northern Division championships.
It really started over 30 years ago.
Jim Mathewson had been a baseball coach with the HYAA in the early 1990s to advise his son, James, who now lives in Gilbert, Arizona. Eventually, Mathewson shifted to coaching soccer, where he became the head coach at Stanford Middle School in 1993.
One of his players with Stanford was Eric Gephart, who would go on to play as a walk-on at UNC Wilmington after graduating from Orange High School. Gephart eventually traveled around the world as a chef and owns a restaurant in Wrightsville Beach.
Mathewson coached the men’s and women’s teams at Carolina Friends School for 18 years, along with various club squads. When he hung up his whistle in 2017, he thought it was for good.
“I was getting long in the tooth,” Mathewson said.
His main job was being a grandfather until Gephart called one day in 2024. He asked him to come out of retirement to coach his daughter, Hyland, who was about to start as a sixth grader at Orange Middle School, formerly Stanford Middle.
Mathewson promised Eric to coach his daughter. He didn’t know it would lead to sustained success.
In May, Orange Middle defeated McDougle 2-1 in Chapel Hill to win the Orange Person Athletic Conference championship. It was the first conference title for Orange Middle in women’s soccer since 2018, when they defeated Phillips 2-1.
Ironically, the Chargers reached the title game in May despite suffering a rare loss to a Northern Division rival. Just four days before the date with McDougle, Gravelly Hill defeated the Chargers at the soccer.com Complex in Efland. It was Mathewson’s first loss against a division foe since his return.
“That was worrisome because you never know how you’re going to react the next time you’re going to get on the field,” Mathewson said.
Even worse, Gigi Gooden, Orange Middle’s third-leading scorer, suffered a concussion against the Grizzlies and would miss the OPAC title game.
“We were all really disappointed in how we played against Gravelly,” Hyland Gephardt said. “Coming off of Gigi’s concussion, and looking back at how long we had been playing throughout the year, we wanted to beat Culbreth. Losing to them in years prior, we were in the mindset that we had to go out there and win.”
This was the third straight season that the Chargers reached the OPAC Championship game. In each of the previous two years, Orange Middle had given up a goal early and faced an uphill battle. This year, the Chargers scored twice in the first half. Camila Viera, a sixth-grader, scored the opening goal.
“That was huge,” Mathewson said. “They were expecting to win. You could tell that was very deflating for McDougle. They weren’t expecting to lose.”
Ten minutes later, Hannah Wimsatt put the Chargers ahead 2-0, a lead they took to halftime.
By their own admission, the Chargers grew a little overconfident coming out of the locker room. The Mustangs cut the Chargers lead in half about five minutes into the second half. It left the Chargers on defense the rest of the way, with OMS Athletic Director Joshua Kincade leaping for joy on the sidelines after every cleared ball by the Chargers.
“It was very stressful,” Gephardt said. “Kincade was pacing down the sidelines. He loves all the sports here.”
Mathewson also deviated from his normal coaching routine. For one of the first times in his career, he assigned a player to McDougle’s best player. He usually plays a zone. He assigned Gephart, who led the team with 16 goals, to McDougle’s top scorer, who scored a goal in the 2025 championship game.
“I had to sacrifice one of my goal scorers to make sure they didn’t have the opportunity to score,” Mathewson said. “Hyland was ready for that role. She’s very fast. She’s aggressive and she held them in check.”
As soon as the final whistle sounded, Kincaid bear hugged Mathewson.
“I was almost accosted by him,” Mathewson said.
Wimsatt’s game-winning goal was her 12th of the season. Gooden registered eight on the season.
Orange came into the spring battle tested. In 2024, OMS won the divisional championship but lost to Culbreth in the OPAC Championship game. Gephart, Wimsatt and Gooden were all sixth graders back then. They never forgot the lessons from that loss.
“It was disappointing because we had played better than that,” Matthewson said. “That was the first chance these ladies had a chance to win the whole thing.”
Eight starters graduated from the 2024 team squad. In 2025, the Chargers won the Northern Division championship again. Matthewson thought it was their time to win the conference. They defeated two Chapel Hill teams in the regular season, but they fell to McDougle in the OPAC title game.
When practice started in March, Orange had to replace three starters, including Emeline Lobdell and Emery Kruse, both of whom started for Orange High immediately.
As Gephart, Wimsatt and Gooden make their way up the hill to Orange High, where they will start their high school careers next week as freshmen, Mathewson was reminded about why he loves coaching.
“I knew I was getting a great player when Eric asked me to come back,” Mathewson said. “I didn’t know I would be getting such a wonderful group of girls along with it.”
