Men’s soccer falls 1-0 to UC Irvine in NCAA Tournament

The game was winding down in California, with the North Carolina men’s soccer team tied at nothing against No. 12 UC Irvine. It looked like yet another overtime game was going to happen, and maybe it would even come down to the penalty kicks that the Tar Heels had been practicing in preparation for the NCAA tournament.

Just 10 more seconds.

The defense had been stout all year for the Tar Heels, giving up just 12 goals on the season, and it looked like they were going to carry the team into extra time again.

Five more seconds.

The lineup change that was seen during the first round of the NCAA tournament — the game where the Tar Heels scored in the fourth minute of the match against South Florida — might have come just a little too late.

Two seconds.

The ball sailed past redshirt junior goalkeeper Brendan Moore for the first time all day and landed in the back of the net. UC Irvine went up 1-0 against the Tar Heels with only two seconds left in the game and ended UNC’s season in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

“Obviously disappointed,” coach Carlos Somoano said after the game. “Look, in the end you score two seconds in, or two seconds left… you just gotta get your goals, right?”

In the final game of the season, UNC struggled yet again offensively, putting up just three shots during 90 minutes of play.

“The bottom line is they were better,” Somoano said. “We tried to get our legs recovered from Thursday night, and we just didn’t have it.

“It was one of those days where you could just see it. Nothing was coming together. We just weren’t sharp. We weren’t explosive.”

As good as UNC has been defensively all season, in the final seconds of the game it just wasn’t good enough. Junior defender Boyd Okwuonu said the team played better as the game wore on, but ultimately it wasn’t enough.

“I think we started off a little slow,” said the ACC defensive player of the year. “Eventually got a little better, but just, we didn’t get the job done as a team. I mean that’s about it.”

But it wasn’t just playing poorly in the final game that led to the defeat. Somoano said that the regular season needs to be better if the team wants to avoid playing away from home when the NCAA tournament comes along.

“I think that one of the harder things for us is that the field is very small,” he said. “We are used to playing on much bigger fields, and on top of being a small field, choppy.

“So it kind of disrupted us, what we’re used to doing, and I think to be a champion you have to be able to deal with those things. You have to be able to play under these kinds of circumstances.”

From the start of the season, UNC was forced to play through difficult situations — most notably the losses of forwards Andy Craven and Rob Lovejoy, the team’s top two scorers from 2012, to season-ending injuries.

Now the Tar Heels will have to regroup and wait until 2014 to get another shot at claiming an NCAA title. But Okwuono feels confident they will be ready.

“I think we’re going to be a strong competitor next year and a great team,” he said.

For Somoano, however, the team will have to make adjustments.

“Bitter pill to swallow,” Somoano said. “We’ve gotta do better during the season so that we’re the ones playing at home and somebody has to come to us or we’re going to have to deal with these circumstances better, one or the other.

“And this year we didn’t do either.”

sports@dailytarheel.com