University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Virginia
Tar Heels Fall To UVa In ACC Semifinals
November 8, 2014 | Women's Soccer
GREENSBORO, N.C. – The fourth-ranked Virginia women's soccer team advanced to the ACC Women's Soccer Championship Sunday afternoon against second-ranked Florida State as it knocked off fifth-ranked North Carolina, 2-0, at UNCG Soccer Stadium on Friday evening.
”I want to congratulate Virginia. They played a great game. They certainly deserved to win and advance,"said UNC head coach Anson Dorrance, whose team shared the ACC regular season title with Florida State. "But I was proud of the way our kids tried to make a game of it in the second half. In the first half, even though we were down two, we could have been down more. I thought goalkeeper Bryane Heaberlin made a couple of great saves to keep it at two. In the second half, I thought we gathered ourselves and started to compete a little bit better. I was proud of that – not that we created a lot of chances – but we played a bit more at their end. So I left the game with a certain satisfaction.”
The Cavaliers, which entered the match scoring an ACC-best 3.50 goals per game, wasted little time in pushing the pace offensively in the first half, as they had two prime scoring chances in the first 10 minutes of the contest.
Carolina's first shot on goal came just 40 seconds when Megan Buckingham had a shot from the left side of the penalty area that was saved by Morgan Stearns.
Then next minutes were dominated possession wise by the Cavaliers. UVA midfielder Emily Sonnett registered the first chance less than five minutes into the match, as she found herself with a chance from the top of the box off a free kick by the Wahoos near midfield. Sonnett nearly slid a shot past UNC goalkeeper Bryane Heaberlin, who moved to her left to make a diving save. With 35 minutes left in the first half, Heaberlin again came up big stopping a one-on-one chance against Kalli Torres from the 12-yard line.
Less than five minutes later, however, Makenzy Doniak notched her 14th goal of the year to put UVa up 1-0. Doniak was the recipient of an Alexis Shaffer pass with sprung her free in the right side of the box into the left side of the net. Kristen McNabb also assisted on the goal.
Sixteen minutes into the match, Heaberlin made another big save, throwing her body in front of a shot by Alexis Shaffer who was one-on-one with the goalie from 15 yards away.
But UVa added to its lead at the 28:35 mark of the half, as Morgan Reuther connected for her fifth goal of the season after collecting a pass from Danielle Colaprico at the top of the box. Ruether sent a show with a wicked bend on it from the top of the box into the center of the goal after it appeared it was headed into the upper right 90.
With the second marker on the board for the Cavaliers, the Tar Heels found themselves in a unique position, as it was just the 23rd time in 863 games in UNC's history that UNC has trailed by more than one goal in a game.
Virginia outshot the Tar Heels 8-2 in the first half. Carolina had a good chance to cut the lead in half late in the first half when an Amanda Rooney corner kick found Darcy McFarlane in the box but her shot was cleared off the line by Morgan Reid of the Cavaliers.
Facing a two-goal deficit at halftime, the Tar Heels came out in the second half, won a decent amount of possession and outshot the Cavaliers 3-2 in the period. But the Virginia defense held strong and recorded its third straight shutout win over the Tar Heels in the series. UNC utilized 23 players in the game but despite the fresh legs it was not able to wear down and athletic and talented Virginia side.
The two-goal loss was only the third loss by multiple goals in 716 matches for the Tar Heels dating back to 1985. Of the three loses, Virginia now owns two of the multiple goal victories over the Tar Heels - 2013 and 2014 and the other belongs to Notre Dame (2010).
Carolina will assuredly earn an at-lrage invitation to the NCAA Tournament when bids are announced Monday at 4:30 p.m. on NCAA.com. Carolina will likely host an NCAA Tournament first round game next Friday at 5 p.m. at Fetzer Field.
“Even though we've been knocked out of the ACC Championship by a very good Virginia team, we think we will have an opportunity to compete well in the NCAA Tournament – we're hoping as a No. 2 seed, and there are some who think we may even still be in the running for a No. 1 seed with the schedule we have played," said Dorrance. "Our schedule is, I believe, ranked the second toughest (nationally). And we're hoping that this game will show us some things that we can work on a bit, so that we can continue to improve.”
