Women’s Soccer off to a great start

2010 Women's Soccer Team (Picture from TarHeelBlue.com)

While we are all waiting for North Carolina’s football team to take the field against LSU in less than two weeks, another program began its season at Chapel Hill. The Women’s Soccer squad, who are defending champions and ranked 2nd in the Soccer America poll and first in the NSCAA one, began their season this weekend with two wins. Add to that two seniors, middi Ali Hawkins and defender Rachel Givan, were named to the Soccer America Women’s pre-season All-American squad, which shows once again how head coach Anson Dorrance keeps the talent coming in year in, year out. And to top it all off, senior midfielder Meghan Klingenberg, who scored and had an assist in the first game of the tournament, was named the Progress Energy Performer of the Week.

But let’s talk about the two games for a minute. The first game was against eighth ranked Texas A&M, which by no means is an easy game. Yet, with five returning starters the Lady Heels made it seem pretty easy in front of 2,822 fans in the Aggies’ home stadium. But for coach Dorrance’s club that field brought luck, as his squad won the national championship just a season ago, and it would once again bring him and his team luck, as the Carolina would take down Texas A&M by a final of 3-0. The three tallies all came from UNC middies, including the above mentioned Klingenberg, who had the game winner in this game with just three minutes gone by. It was a nice goal set up by a pair of middies, freshman Meg Morris, who would win a 50-50 ball in the midfield and find senior Ali Hawkins, who would then send it to Klingenberg. A couple of good dribbles, a good shot and the Heels were ahead 1-0, and were ahead to stay.

Even if the shots on goal favored the Aggies 9 to 7 it was the Lady Heels that would score once again in the first half, when on a corner senior defender Rachel Givan placed the ball into the middle of the box where Ali Hawkins headed it inside the right post for a 2-0 lead. The third goal, scored in the second half, was a header, as Klingenberg took control of a 50-50 ball just outside the opposition’s 18 and crossed it perfectly into sophomore midfielder Amber Brooks’ path, who nailed it far past past the outstretched hands of the Aggies’ goalie. While all of UNC gave fits to the Texas A&M keeper their own would be making some sort of record as freshman Anna Sieloff became the first Heel to start her career with a shutout since Jenni Branam in 1999.

For more info on this game you can check out the details on UNC Athletic Page. There you can also see the box score.

In the second game the score was the same (3-0), and the way the Lady Heels won was as well, by dominating the action against Michigan State. Carolina got a balanced scoring effort with sophomore attacker Alyssa Rich scoring the game winner and getting the assist on the next one. Two forward freshmen, Kealia Ohai and Elizabeth Burchenal got their feet wet in this game, with Ohai scoring her first ever goal as a Lady Heel while her counterpart getting her first ever assist as a Carolina player.

Just like in game one of the tournament head coach Anson Dorrance’s club came out strong and got a goal out of it. In less than five minutes the Lady Heels were ahead one nothing thanks to the nice play of junior forward Courtney Jones, who dribbled past her marker and put a cross into the box where Rich one timed it from about 10 feet out to put Lady Heels up to stay. After the break UNC scored once again, this time it was Rich making the cross into the box, where Ohai claimed it, juked two defenders and hit the ball lazer hard into the goal from point blank range. With about a third of the half to go UNC went ahead 3-0 on MSU with a breakaway goal by Bartok, who split the defense off a feed from Burchenal and then beat the goalie on a 1 on 1 situation by hitting the ball past the keeper from 40 feet out.

For more info on this game you can check out the details on UNC Athletic Page. There you can also see the box score.

If you want to check out the team in action you don’t have much to wait as they will be playing Friday and Sunday next weekend in the Carolina Nike Classic at Fetzer Field. On Friday, it will first be 24th ranked Duke versus Missouri at 4 p.m. EST. followed by the night cap featuring the top two teams in the nation, Carolina and Stanford, the game scheduled to start at 6 p.m. For those of you that do not remember, or do not follow soccer too much, this is a re-match of the `09 NCAA championship game which was won by Carolina 1-0 over an unbeaten and untied Stanford. Sunday’s games will be first Stanford and Duke in an 11 a.m. start followed by UNC vs Missouri.

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