N.C. State spoils UNC's Senior Night

The North Carolina men’s soccer team stood stunned. Some players crouched while others stared into space.

In the 92nd minute of UNC’s regular season finale Friday night, N.C. State midfielder Nazmi Albadawi chipped a shot over redshirt junior goalkeeper Brendan Moore, who had come out to play the ball. After clearing Moore, the ball slowly skipped into the back of the net, giving N.C. State a 1-0 overtime win.

Albadawi and his teammates rushed toward the N.C. State fans in attendance with their arms raised, occasionally flashing their black and red jerseys to show the home crowd.

Moore said the goal was the result of a miscommunication between himself and redshirt defender Nick Williams, who was inserted into the lineup today when usual starter Jonathan Campbell
couldn’t play.

“I’ve got to clean that up,” Moore said. “I’ve just got to come out and just take care of it myself instead of leaving it up to chance. We can be better in that situation. I was expecting a header back and he was expecting me to come out.

“When you hesitate like that you get punished and you concede a goal.”

The goal was the first allowed by UNC (8-3-5, 4-1-5 ACC) in 415 minutes, dating back to the team’s Oct. 22 loss to UNC-Wilmington.

Nine of UNC’s 17 games this season have gone to overtime, with the Tar Heels going 2-2-5 in those games.

After the Senior Night loss, Moore said the Wolfpack’s celebration was tough to watch.

“It’s not something you want to see,” he said. “Our goal is not to lose games at home, and we’ve lost four games at home.”

With the loss, UNC failed to clinch the No. 4 seed in the ACC tournament, losing the chance to play an ACC Tournament game at Fetzer Field. Clemson, which had lost 1-0 to Duke shortly before the conclusion of UNC’s game, will host the Tar Heels Tuesday in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals.

UNC mounted plenty of goal-scoring chances, tallying 14 shots and forcing Wolfpack goalkeeper Fabian Otte into six saves.

In the seventh minute, junior forward Tyler Engel headed a well-placed cross from Verneri Valimaa toward the near post, but Otte got a piece of the ball, deflecting it off the post and out of play.

Later in the first half, Engel played the ball past the Wolfpack defense, but with Otte out of position, Engel couldn’t get off a shot on goal before the ball was cleared.

“The goalie was running out, I touched it by the goalie and took too far of a touch and I cut it at the last second to keep it from going out of bounds,” Engel said. “I didn’t really have any angle to shoot, and the guy actually recovered well and got to it first.”

N.C. State’s Roland Minogue threatened the Tar Heels on three shots, lifting his 38th minute opportunity in space over the cross bar. In the second half, Minogue fired a shot off the hands of Moore, and in the 79th minute he left his feet to connect on a header that clanged off the right post.

In the 63rd minute, Valimaa beat two defenders but had his shot knocked away by a lunging Otte.

Somoano said his team was able to create scoring chances, but the chances weren’t vicious enough to get past Otte.

“We gave (Otte) an opportunity to make saves and he did make saves, but they weren’t easy,” Somoano said. “There were some chances that went away that we could’ve taken advantage of.”

Somoano said it was unfortunate the Tar Heels wouldn’t be playing in the postseason at home, but it might be for the best to get away from Fetzer Field where the team has struggled.

“Maybe we’re better off on the road,” he said. “We’ve lost four games this year and they’re all at home, so obviously if we knew the answer to changing that we would have done it before tonight.”