Tonight in Winston-Salem, the N.C. State women’s soccer team takes on Wake Forest in a game pivotal for both teams. Out of the 11 schools which participate in ACC women’s soccer, only eight make it to the ACC tournament. Right now, both the Deacons and the Wolfpack have a chance of missing initial postseason play.
Wake Forest is 9-5 overall but has struggled in the tough ACC so far at 2-4. The Demon Deacons stand seventh in the league in points with six. That is only a mere two points ahead of Clemson, which stands on the outside looking in, ranked ninth. In soccer, wins are worth three points, so only one game could knock Wake Forest out of the picture.
The Wolfpack finds itself in an even tougher situation. After starting 0-6 in the ACC, State sits at the bottom of the heap. The eighth ranked team is Miami, which has four points in the ACC on the year.
“Generally, you’ve got to get three wins to go in,” junior midfielder Meredith Parilla said. “Losing to Clemson definitely set us back a little bit.”
Three wins in the last four games is not impossible, especially because three of them are all against the lower third of teams in the ACC — teams battling for a spot in the tournament alongside State. Those three games are against the ACC’s seventh, eighth, and tenth ranked teams.
Yet if history gives us any indication, the Pack will be hard pressed for a win tonight. The team has not won an ACC road game since October 8, 2006. State has also only posted one overall road win this entire season.
“From here on out we’ve got four games and we’re going to take them one at a time,” coach Laura Kerrigan said. “Anybody who thinks ahead of that is not really focused on the next game. Right now our whole focus is to pick up a win at Wake Forest, and we’ll go from there.”
Kerrigan also said that the team has discussed what it needs to do to make it into the ACC tournament. If State loses tonight, there would be no way of catching up to the Demon Deacons. The highest possible position the Pack could place would then be the eighth and final spot. Needless to say, State is getting into a must-win situation very quickly.
