In a battle between two top-five teams, No. 3 North Carolina put up a convincing win over No. 2 Notre Dame with a 4-2 victory at home on Friday night.
Notre Dame (4-2-1, 1-1-0 ACC) got off a quick goal after a turnover in the 13th minute, slipping the ball just past the reach of redshirt freshman goalkeeper James Pyle. But the Tar Heels (5-0-1, 2-0-0 ACC) responded in the 21st minute with a goal by junior defender Colton Storm from 15 yards out to tie the match.
With the ball on the Notre Dame half of the field with one minute left in the first period, it looked as if the teams would go into the half deadlocked at 1. But with three seconds on the clock, redshirt junior forward Tucker Hume took his first shot of the game, blasting a shot past the goalkeeper to send the Tar Heels to the locker room up 2-1.
The Fighting Irish came back onto the field with a vengeance, tallying five shots in the first seven minutes. But it was North Carolina that drew first blood in the second half. After a shanked kick by Notre Dame goalkeeper Chris Hubbard resulted in a steal by Storm, sophomore forward Zach Wright assisted the ball to sophomore forward Alan Winn for the Tar Heels' third goal.
In the 63rd minute, after a foul on senior midfielder Raby George, George caught the Fighting Irish defense off guard with a quick pass to Wright. Wright set up the cross for Winn, who buried a shot in the back of the net to give North Carolina its fourth goal of the game.
Notre Dame’s second goal came in the 69th minute, when North Carolina senior defender Jonathan Campbell popped the ball into the top of his own goal while attempting to clear a shot. The goal was credited to Mark Gormley of the Fighting Irish.
The final 20 minutes went by relatively quietly on both ends of the field, and the Tar Heels finished with a statement victory — the 700th in program history.
Quotable
“Probably the most important thing, I really want to thank the crowd for coming out. They were awesome, I think they’re really inspiring to our players. To have these people behind us, the (Carolina) Fever and the fans, it just pushes you on, and for me that’s the biggest takeaway. I think we won a home game because we had a crowd come in and (they) just pushed us to it.” — North Carolina coach Carlos Somoano on the crowd at Fetzer Field on Friday night.
