Kyle Edwards scored a consolation goal in the closing minutes of the game, but Coventry won 3–1 to earn promotion to the 2018–19 EFL League One.

Three days after the final, the Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale left the club after twelve years, having failed to agree a new contract.

With three minutes of the match remaining, Matt Tootle was adjudged to have fouled Tom Bayliss and Marc McNulty scored the resulting penalty to level the tie.

The home team saw two claims for penalties denied and both sides spurned opportunities to score as the game finished goalless.

[10] In the matches played between the two sides during the regular season, each team won their home game, with Coventry winning 2–1 at the Ricoh Arena in September 2017 and Exeter victorious at St James Park 1–0 the following January.

[12] Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale was confident in his team's chances of victory, reflecting on their previous season's failure at Wembley, suggesting that his players had "experience of the build-up, the logistics, the preparations and what it felt like to lose".

[15] Steve Perryman, Exeter's director of football was to retire after the final having fulfilled the role at the club for fifteen years.

[13] The referee for the match was David Webb, who had officiated Coventry once during the regular season, a 2–1 home win over Cheltenham Town in December.

Tisdale made one change to the Exeter squad, with Craig Woodman starting and Robbie Simpson dropping into the substitutes.

[14] Coventry wore a one-off kit commissioned for the match as the club had run out of their regular season home strip.

[14] Coventry City kicked the match off at around 3:00 p.m. on 28 May 2018 in hot and sunny conditions, with a pitchside temperature of 30 °C (86 °F), in front of a Wembley Stadium crowd of 50,196.

Two minutes later, Coventry were temporarily reduced to ten men when Chris Stokes was forced to leave the pitch for medical attention after he was accidentally struck in the face by Stockley.

A minute later, the deadlock was broken as Coventry took a 1–0 lead through Jordan Willis who turned and shot from outside the box, his strike curling past Pym.

In the 62nd minute, Exeter made a double substitution, with Woodman and Dean Moxey being replaced by Lloyd James and Matt Jay.

Six minutes later, both sides made further substitutions, Shipley replaced by Kyel Reid for Coventry and Kyle Edwards coming on for Boateng for Exeter.

[16] With twelve minutes of regulation time remaining, Pym was forced to make a save from a curling Bayliss shot before Jay's long-range strike for Exeter was gathered by Burge.

Five minutes later Clarke-Harris' shot from distance went astray before Edwards scored a consolation goal for Exeter with another curled strike.

Four minutes into additional time, Stockley's header was saved by Burge before another shot from the Exeter striker went wide of the Coventry post.

"[19] His counterpart, Tisdale, said in his post-match press conference that "it wasn't the best performance, two very good goals against us and really disappointed" but also expressed pride in the club and its players for the season as a whole.