Tar Heels Fall To Mountaineers In NCAA Semifinal

Friday, December 2

San Jose, Calif.

5:00 PM

North Carolina

17-4-4, 6-2-2ACC

West Virginia

23-1-2, 8-0-0BIG 12

Team	1	2	Final F
North Carolina	0	0	0
West Virginia	0	1	1

December 3, 2016 | Women's Soccer

Box Score

By: UNC Athletic Communications

SAN JOSE, CALIF. – The sixth-ranked University of North Carolina women's soccer team saw its storybook 2016 season come to an end Friday evening as the Tar Heels fell to consensus #1 West Virginia 1-0 in the NCAA semifinal at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, Calif.

The Mountaineers claimed the victory on an unassisted goal by Michaela Abam, her 12^th of the season, at 73:46 of the game, the first goal surrendered by the Tar Heels since beating Notre Dame 2-1 in the ACC Tournament semifinal on November 4. UNC had shutout its last five opponents heading into Friday's game.

The Tar Heels, who started the season 5-2-1, went 12-2-3 over its last 17 games of the season against one of the nation's toughest schedules, including a challenging regular season ACC slate and three games in the NCAA Tournament. UNC finished 17-4-4 overall and it reached the NCAA semifinals for the 27^th time in the 35-year history of the tournament and suffered only its 12^th NCAA Tournament loss in history Friday. West Virginia, ranked #1 in the NSCAA and Soccer America polls, improved to 23-1-2 on the season with the win over the Tar Heels.

Neither team gained much traction in the first half. UNC did not get a shot off in the opening 45 minutes, the first time it had been held without a shot in a half since the opening 45 minutes of a 0-0 tie with Duke on September 2 of this year. West Virginia took three shots in the opening half and UNC goalkeeper Lindsey Harris made two saves early in the match to keep the game scoreless.

West Virginia went on to outshoot the Tar Heels 10-8 in the second half. Harris made three more saves to finish with five on the game and 96 on the season, the most in a single campaign by any Tar Heel in history. In the end, Carolina was unable to put any of its eight shots on goal against a West Virginia defense which has allowed only nine goals in 26 games this season.

West Virginia broke through in the 74^th minute after the Tar Heels committed a foul in a dangerous area on the left side of the pitch just 25 yards away from the goal. The Mountaineers served an excellent ball into the box at the four-yard line. An initial clearance by the UNC defense ended up on the foot of Abam, who was just 10 yards from the goal line in the right side of the box. Her shot was struck with pace and careened into the upper right 90, a perfectly placed and unsaveable strike.

The Tar Heels put immense pressure on the West Virginia penalty area after that and had excellent scoring chances for freshmen forwards Bridgette Andrzejewski and Madison Schultz but both of their shots went just high. Another excellent look from Megan Buckingham was just wide of the left goal post a few minutes later and the Mountaineers were able to kill the clock the rest of the way to post the win.

Friday marked the final game for six Tar Heel seniors, including starting midfielders Cameron Castleberry and Darcy McFarlane, starting goalkeeper Lindsey Harris and starting defender Hanna Gardner. Strikers Sarah Ashley Firstenberg and Jenny Chiu were also seniors on the Tar Heels' 2016 team.

UNC will welcome back in 2017 the other 24 returning players plus add an excellent recruiting class. Four 2016 redshirts will back back, including a pair of U.S. U20 National Team standouts – forward Jessie Scarpa and defender Taylor Otto. Also back in 2017 will be starting midfielder Joanna Boyles and midfielder Kate Morris, both redshirts in 2016 while recovering from knee injuries.