University of North Carolina Athletics
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Tar Heels Down No. 2 UCLA To Advance To NCAA Final
December 5, 2008 | Women's Soccer
Dec. 5, 2008
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CARY, N.C. - The defenses were dominant Friday night in the NCAA women's soccer semifinals at WakeMed Soccer Park but a penalty kick goal in the 41st minute by University of North Carolina senior midfielder Yael Averbuch proved to be the margin of victory as the fourth-ranked Tar Heels downed the second-ranked UCLA Bruins 1-0 before a sellout crowd of 8,926 fans on a clear but bitterly cold night.
With the victory the Tar Heels (24-1-2) advance to Sunday's NCAA championship game where they will play No. 1-ranked Notre Dame (26-0-0) at 2 p.m. Walk-up tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis for at the WakeMed Soccer Park box office prior to Sunday's match. The match will also be nationally televised by ESPN2.
Friday night's match featured the nation's No. 1-ranked scoring offense from North Carolina at 3.31 goals scored per game against the nation's No. 1-ranked scoring defense from UCLA at 0.202 goals allowed per game. The defenses on both sides won out Friday as Carolina posted its 17th shutout of the season in 26 games. The Tar Heels outshot the Bruins 12-8 and had a 4-2 edge in corner kicks. Averbuch's game-winning penalty kick was only the sixth goal allowed all season by the Bruins in their 25th game of the campaign. The Bruins suffered their first loss of the season and ended their campaign at 22-1-2.
In the first semifinal game Friday night, top-ranked Notre Dame scored a goal early in the first half and then withstood a barrage of 20 Stanford shots to beat the fifth-ranked Cardinal 1-0 to advance to the NCAA championship match.
The Tar Heels got off the first shot of the game at the three-minute mark as freshman striker Courtney Jones' shot was blocked by the UCLA defense. Carolina had a pair of corner kicks only 23 seconds apart in the sixth minute. The first of the two corners, both taken by Yael Averbuch, was bending into the goal before UCLA goalkeeper Ashley Thompson punched it over the bar to keep the Tar Heels off the scoreboard. Casey Nogueira of the Tar Heels had the next two shots of the match, but her strike at 7:50 was saved by Thompson and her effort at 10:40 sailed wide.
UCLA nearly took the lead in the 16th minute after a foul on the Tar Heels just outside of the penalty area goal line extended on the right side of the pitch. Lauren Barnes of the Bruins sent a shot far post that was curving into the upper left of the frame before Carolina's starting goalkeeper, Anna Rodenbough, knocked it away.
Carolina had a pair of scoring opportunities midway through the first half but Tobin Heath's shot at 21:23 went high and less than a minute later Jessica McDonald's shot was turned away by Thompson.
Tar Heel head coach Anson Dorrance made liberal use of his bench, playing 18 players during the match, with all seeing a minimum of 15 minutes of action. In an eight-minute span of the first half, the Tar Heels made five substitutions in less than eight minutes to get fresh legs in the game, a move which would pay dividends later in the half.
UCLA posted back to-back shots in a span of 52 seconds as Erin Hardy's effort went high at 33:28 followed by a scoring attempt at 34:20 by Christina DiMartino that was blocked by the Tar Heel defense.
Late in the 40th minute North Carolina saw two of its reserve forwards hook up on a play that would lead to the winning goal for the Tar Heels. Tobin Heath battled hard for possession with several UCLA defenders on the left side of the field when the ball squirted out from the pack and slid from left to right across the top of the 18-yard box. Freshman forward Emmalie Pfankuch hustled to retrieve the ball at the top of the box dead center in front of the goal. She slipped a pass past a Bruin defender to freshman reserve forward Brittani Batrok, who was standing at the eight-yard line. Just as Bartok was ready to receive the ball for a pivot and a shot at Thompson, she was taken down from behind by UCLA's Erin Hardy, resulting in a penalty kick.
It marked the first penalty kick attempt for the Tar Heels in 2008 so there was no history on who would take the shot. In didn't take long for the decision to be made, however, as senior midfielder Yael Averbuch, one of the team's co-captains, stepped up to the 12-yard mark and sent a hard, low shot into the right side netting for the game-winner. UCLA's Thompson actually guessed correctly on the shot and dove valiantly to her left to try to get a hand on it, but Averbuch's struck the ball with both pace and accuracy as it eluded Thompson's touch.
Carolina, as it does in every game, made a goalkeeping change at halftime as redshirt junior Ashlyn Harris came on for the Tar Heels to replace Rodenbough. While Rodenbough faced only one shot on frame from the Bruins in the first half, Harris would find herself far busier in the second 45 minutes.
UCLA came out very strong in the second half and had a sterling opportunity to notch a tie in the match at the 47:04 mark when Kara Lang got into the box behind the entire UNC defense for a one-one-one opportunity with the Tar Heel goalkeeper. Harris made a tremendous save on the shot and then pounced on the ball to prevent any rebound possibility. It would prove to be UCLA's most dangerous scoring chance of the night.
Shots were hard to come by in the second half as the two teams combined for only three of the eventual 10 second-half shots in the first 27:19 of the period. The pace then picked up for both teams starting at the 72:19 mark when Averbuch's outside shot was saved by Thompson. The Bruins got off back-to-back shots in the 76th minute with Lauren Cheney's effort blocked at 75:03 only to see DiMartino produce a hard, solid strike from the outside that Harris saved 20 seconds later. Twenty-eight seconds later the action was back on the other end with Thompson turning back Brittani Bartok's scoring try.
At 76:26, Dorrance made five substitutions at once to get Carolina's most-rested legs possible on the field for the stretch run. Ali Hawkins, Emmalie Pfankuch, Leslie Briggs, Mandy Moraca and Courtney Jones all came on at that point in relief of Rachel Wood, Merritt Mathias, Casey Nogueira, Allie Long and Brittani Bartok.
At 80:39, Moraca had a shot from the right side of the box that was saved by Thompson. UCLA's last shot of the game came at 84:21 as Cheney's header in the box was saved by Harris. Nogueira had the last look for Carolina at 87:31 as she sent a hard shot from just outside the penalty area high over the bar.
Carolina possessed the ball the last three minutes and denied the Bruins any chance to get across midfield with possession and the opportunity to set up a final effort to tie the game.
Carolina is now in the national final for the 22nd time in the 27-year history of the NCAA Tournament. The Heels face a Notre Dame team that has run through 26 games this season without a loss or a tie. The Fighting Irish will be looking for their third consecutive victory over the Tar Heels after beating Carolina 3-2 in the NCAA Round of 16 at Fetzer Field to end UNC's 2007 campaign and then blanking the Tar Heels 1-0 on September 5 of this season at Fetzer Field in the Carolina/Nike Classic.
