Men's Soccer Conquers Cavaliers

The 3,055 fans who turned out would not be disappointed as UNC scored two goals in less than three minutes to beat UVa. 2-1 and win its conference opener.

Aside from a watching two of the ACC's best, the fans witnessed an evening of firsts.

The Tar Heels (5-2, 1-0) beat UVa. (3-3, 0-2) at Fetzer Field for the first time since 1994. The Cavaliers have started 0-2 in the ACC for the first time since 1977, and they've lost their third straight game for the first time since 1981.

David Testo returned for his first game after serving a two-game suspension for violating team rules and scored his first goal of the season.

UNC coach Elmar Bolowich, who got his first regular-season win against UVa. in eight years, was satisfied with the outcome.

"I thought our boys fought very hard," said Bolowich. "They put everything into the game. That's what we wanted out of them -- we wanted that commitment from every single player and that's what they showed."

Virginia's Alecko Eskandarian opened the scoring in the 17th minute by stealing the ball from a UNC defender, breaking into the penalty area and placing a sensational shot into the far side netting past a diving UNC goalkeeper Ford Williams. The goal boosted Eskandarian's ACC-leading total to eight.

But less than a minute later, UNC's Ryan Kneipper stole the ball from a UVa. defender at the edge of their box, dribbled to the top and toe-poked the ball into the net. Cavalier goalkeeper David Comfort was frozen on his line and never made a move on the Kneipper shot.

"We went down 1-0, and that's always frustrating as a forward because you don't have much to do with when they get a goal, and you've got to try to rally the team up," Kneipper said.

And rally he did.

Just over two minutes later, the Tar Heels struck again.

Matt Crawford served a corner into the box that found the head of Testo, which then found the back of the net for the go-ahead, and eventual, game-winning goal.

"After (Virginia) scored the goal, we came right back. That was big," said Bolowich.

With 65 minutes left to play, the scoring ended, but Virginia pressured the Tar Heels throughout the rest of the game.

"After the half, it became more of a battle," Bolowich said. "Virginia was desperate, and we were just trying to hold the results."

UNC did hold, in part because the Tar Heels didn't attack as much and their defense didn't allow Virginia any good looks at the net.

"We played great as a unit," said UNC defender David Stokes. "I think that's the best we played all season.

"We were connected and we held them to not to many shots."

A lot of the credit for not allowing a lot of shots went to the UNC backline of Logan Pause, Grant Porter, Tim Merritt and Stokes.

Cavalier foward Ryan Gibbs was quiet for most of the night. Eskandarian ran all over the field, but Stokes ran step-for-step with the fleet-footed UVa. striker. Stokes has 4 inches and 25 pounds on Eskandarian, but that didn't stop the two from trading fouls throughout the game.

"I don't think he did anything cheap so there's no reason to hit him," Stokes said. "We both battled, had a few knocks, but it was a good match up."

Having dropped two of their last three before Saturday night, the Tar Heels came out looking like a new team.

"(Bolowich) just told us we need to be more committed. That was true," Stokes said. "We had to come up with a different attitude and play like defending national champions."

With lots of soccer left to play and the season nowhere near decided, this win was still big for the Tar Heels.

"I think it's huge for our team," Bolowich said. "We still haven't found ourselves. We had some mixed results up to this point. We almost dropped out of the top 20, and this win brings us right back in.

"For us, it was just good to beat a ranked team and to beat them."

The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu