WINSTON-SALEM — No. 4 NC State men’s soccer fell to No. 1 Wake Forest in its first ACC matchup of the season, 3-0 at Spry Stadium.

The Pack (4-1) held the Deacons (5-0) close in the first half, only allowing one goal, but two second-half goals from Wake Forest put the game out of reach.

“When you come to Wake Forest on the road you’re going to have your hands full and they’re an efficient team so I give them credit,” head coach George Kiefer said. “There are times that I thought we did a good job in the first half and then carried that on into the second half.”

Wake Forest held a majority of the early possession, although the Deacons did not have many chances to score. Midfielder Bruno Lapa took a shot eight minutes into the first half, but was quickly stopped by sophomore goalie Leon Krapf from the Wolfpack.

The Deacons continued to test the Wolfpack’s defensive line as they pushed the ball towards the goal, until NC State counter the attacked by regaining possession and breaking off towards the back.

With 23:50 left in the first half, Omir Fernandez scored the first goal of the match against the Wolfpack. Logan Gdula crossed a ball along the ground into the box and was tapped in by Fernandez on the far post.

Fernandez tried for another shot from the top of the box with 17 minutes remaining, but Krapf was able to get a hand on the ball and push it over the bar to prevent the Deacons from scoring again.

At the end of the first half Wake Forest held the lead, 1-0. Sophomore forward David Loera’s ability to dribble out of pressure helped to get the Wolfpack out of dangerous situations on their own half. He also was the Wolfpack’s best offensive outlet. Krapf also impressed with multiple crucial saves during the first half.

“Leon is excellent and I did think they got into some wide areas,” Kiefer said. “In those areas you have to run with what your plays are in the box.”

During the opening minutes of the second half the Wolfpack played much more open in attacking than they did in the first half. While this awarded them with more possession time, it was a double-edged sword with the Deacons nearly punishing the Pack on the counter multiple times.

The Deacons scored their second goal of the night with 21 minutes remaining in the match. Fernandez put Justin McMaster’s cross into the back of the net from a similar position to his first goal of the night.

Sophomore midfielder Brad Sweeney scored an own goal to increase the Deacons lead, 3-0. The ball fell to him after a Deacon’s free kick and ricocheted off his shin past Krapf for the own goal.

“Obviously the 3-0 loss is tough and I think what is key now is that we don’t question everything, that we stay positive and that we learn from it,” Krapf said. “That’s the great thing about college soccer is that we already have our next chance on Tuesday, so we will analyze the game from tonight and learn from it.”

Despite a scoreline the Wolfpack showed a lot of promise in different areas of the field. One of those areas was the defense’s ability to keep possession and build from the back.

“I think we are getting better and better.” Loera said, “We just need to adjust a couple things. Once we adjust those things, I think we will become very good and very efficient with the ball, but we just need to keep practicing and keep getting better.”

The Wolfpack’s next opportunity to show that improvement will be at Dail Soccer Stadium on Tuesday where it will face Quinnipiac at 7 p.m.