The women’s soccer team will take the field tonight at 7 p.m. in one of its biggest games of the season against No. 2 North Carolina, the tobacco road rival.

The Tar Heels have lost only one game and tied another while winning 13 this season. Junior forward and defender Gia Cipollini said while UNC is the only team in the ACC that plays a 3-4-3 defensive set, she feels the Wolfpack will be able to cause some problems. 

“We’ve been working on attack with their defensive 3-back,” Cipollini said. “We’re just learning how to attack out of the back, get the ball in transition on our forwards and hopefully capitalize on that.”

In State’s last game against No. 14 Boston College, goalie Rachel Barnette had seven saves in a 1-0 loss. Cipollini insists that not as many shots will be taken on goal this game. 

“Hopefully they won’t have to do that much because our defenders will not let them get any shots off,” Cipollini said. “If that does happen, our goalie is going to have to be big for us. These girls are really good and if they get shots off, we’re gonna want [the goalie] to save them.”

State’s change in system was due to the amount of injuries suffered at the start of the season, according to coach Laura Kerrigan. The new system, which is now the 4-4-2, was used for the players that the team had available.

“It’s a system that works for our players and the players that we have on the field right now,” Kerrigan said. “We’ve gotten some players back in the last couple of games that we didn’t have available before. We were really excited about the way we played against BC and we really believe that we’re hitting our stride here.”

With the game looming, junior forward Briana Cunningham said the upperclassmen have talked to the freshmen about the rivalry.

“Be ready, they’re big, they’re strong and they’re the rival,” Cunningham told the young players. “And we just want to come out on top this year.”