UNC-Chapel Hill routed the women’s soccer team 5-0 Friday night at Fetzer Field in Chapel Hill. Overwhelmed all night by the Tar Heel offense, coach Steve Springthorpe said N.C. State couldn’t deal with No. 2 UNC.
“Carolina is a great team,” Springthorpe said. “We were playing at their place, they were coming off a loss and they take it to whoever they play. But besides that, we just didn’t perform.”
The Heels came out of the gate strong, trying to rebound from their first ACC loss since 2007, and notched three goals in the first 10 minutes of play.
“We really dug ourselves a hole, and it is tough to come back against a team like UNC,” senior defender Katie Ruiz said.
Springthorpe said he expected UNC to come out swinging.
“I knew that coming in. I mean, how many times has Carolina had back-to-back losses? I don’t know if it has ever happened,” Springthorpe said. “They had an entire week to prepare, and I knew they would be ready. But we needed to somewhat match their intensity and we just did not do a good job of that.”
The Wolfpack had an early rush right off the opening kick, but then the Tar Heel offense began to completely control the game, especially once sophomore Courtney Jones put UNC on top 1-0.
“We’ve told our team from the very first day that we cannot afford to give up goals in the first five minutes of a game,” Springthorpe said. “You can’t give up goals five minutes after a goal is scored, so any momentum that we had in the first two to three minutes is gone after the goal. Then it’s only 1-0, it’s early in the game, [so we said] ‘let’s pick it up.’ Then we gave up another goal.”
Starting UNC goaltender Ashlyn Harris had seen so little action she was stretching to stay warm with 20 minutes to go in the first half.
“Giving up those first three goals was killer. We couldn’t really come back from it. We really wanted to see a lot more effort like we had shown in previous ACC games. It wasn’t there [Friday night],” Ruiz said.
Despite not having a lot of positives from actual play, the coaching staff was able to give some of the reserves a taste of a road game against a rival for the first time.
“In the last twenty minutes a lot of people did get their first chance to play, first real time on the field. It’s good for them to experience one of our toughest competitors that we will see in conference,” Ruiz said.
Springthorpe said he made that choice to gain valuable experience for his players rather than grasp at the straws of an improbable comeback.
“We want to get everybody in the game as much as possible. At that point, we are not going to come back,” Springthorpe said. “We want our other players to experience the level, experience who we are playing against.”
Now the task of the players is to put the loss behind them and focus on the rest of the season, according to Springthorpe.
“It’s a learning moment. As our team gets better, hopefully we learn from it,” Springthorpe said.
State plays its next game Thursday vs. No. 11 Wake Forest at Dail Soccer Stadium.
