ASHEVILLE— T.C. Roberson High School soccer coach Rob Wilcher reached a milestone recently that few coaches in North Carolina can claim.

       Roberson recently defeated A.C. Reynolds 2-1 in a hard-fought game at Reynolds that, like many games recently was played in the rain.  The victory gave Wilcher his 1,000th career victory, including his stint coaching both the men’s and women’s soccer teams.

       After the game, according to a report in the Asheville Citizen-Times , he announced that this would be his last year coaching. 

       The most successful soccer coach in western North Carolina and one of the tops in state history has won 578 boys games and three state championships in 29 years and 422 games in 21 years with the girls. The Rams’  2013 North Carolina High School Athletic Association men’s soccer state championship was the school’s first in any team sport at the 4-A level.

       Wilcher is a Pennsylvania native who began his career at Morganton Freedom.

       George Kennedy, who has most recently coached at Bishop McGuinness, has reported over 1,100 victories, in men’s and women’s soccer combined, in over 46 years as a head coach, but Wilcher’s is right at the top ever reported to the NCHSAA.

       Wilcher and A.C. Reynolds coach Patrick Gladys are good friends. And even the milestone game was a home game for the Rockets, in a show of excellent sportsmanship Reynolds announced the news of Wilcher’s 1,000th win over the public-address system.

       The two Roberson goals came in a span of just a couple of minutes in the second half.