UNC defeats Notre Dame and heads to Women’s Soccer Final

While this is the football and basketball season for most fans, for me, who loves a lot more sports than just those two, it’s soccer (the other football) time. North Carolina women’s team (22-3-1), led by head coach Anson Dorrance, was able to find a way to beat Notre Dame (21-4-1) by the final of 1-0 and advanced to its 23rd championship game against Stanford (25-0). It was thanks to Casey Nogueira, who has been on fire through out the playoff, who found the back of the net with just seven minutes to go before the end of regulation. But this game was definitely not easy for the Lady Heels!

Coach Dorrance has always said that he would like to see a goal for ever ten shots. The Heels, who ended up with 26 shots overall (against 8 for the Irish), had taken 23 before the senior forward was able to hit the ball into the Irish’s goal from about two feet out on a pass from freshman defender Lucy Bronze. I watched the game on ESPNU and to say that the Lady Heels dominated the second 45 minutes of the game is not overstating it at all. Notre Dame did get a couple of shots during the second half, even hitting the cross bar on one of their few shots, but all of that happened on counter attacks and not from set plays or coordinated movement from their team.

This Carolina team, as most have been, is once again a dominating squad. This is the 18th shutout that North Carolina has recorded this season, and they have only allowed 12 goals against. Not a surprise, when you think that their head coach has only lost 36 games in the 31 years at Chapel Hill.

The Heels will be facing another undefeated team in the finals, just like they did last year, when they defeated Notre Dame (again). In order to once again win the Heels need to get more touches to senior middi Tobin Heath, who always makes things happen when she is in control of the ball. As a matter of fact it was a feed by Heath that started the only play that ended with a goal in this game. I am sure that both Nogueira and Heath will be playing in the Women’s Pro Soccer come next season, but for now I am sure both of them would love to finish their career at UNC as champions!

So, make sure to tune in to the duece (ESPN2) at 2:00 p.m. EST as the Heels try to win their 20th national championship!

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