M. Soccer: Tar Heels take rain-soaked OT victory

The No. 2 North Carolina men’s soccer team wasn’t supposed to struggle in dispatching the visiting East Tennessee State Buccaneers (1-3-2).

Then the game happened.

Driving rain produced 97 minutes of sloppy soccer, until it was finally — mercifully — brought to a 2-1 end by North Carolina forward Billy Schuler’s golden goal in the 98th minute.

“I don’t think we were really ready to play,” head coach Elmar Bolowich said. “That is what I have to look at: how to get the team better prepared.”

The Tar Heels (5-0-1) struggled against ETSU’s pressure, as the Buccaneers were reticent to put any attackers forward after their initial score.

“It was tough,” Schuler said. “It seemed like East Tennessee State just had a ton of guys behind the ball at all times. The middle was really clogged, and it was hard to get the ball to the middle.”

The Buccaneers fired the opening salvo, as Sean Hoek headed a 25th minute corner kick past UNC keeper Brooks Haggerty.

“We didn’t create any opportunities, we didn’t have shot after shot after shot,” Bolowich said. “As a result, (ETSU) was just waiting for an opportunity and it came off the restart, and that gave them life.”

The Tar Heels answered on a penalty kick in the 33rd minute. Immediately after a free kick, the referee blew the whistle and pointed to the penalty spot. Players on both teams seemed perplexed.

When asked about the penalty, Schuler said he wasn’t in the game, then asked a passing Haggerty if he knew the call. Haggerty shook his head and headed into the locker room. Haggerty later came back and said some of the team thought Eli Garner was pulled down to draw the penalty.

Regardless, Zach Loyd converted the penalty kick by slamming home the rebound of his first effort, which was saved by Scott Rosman.

Then the teams failed to differentiate from each other during the next 57 minutes, into overtime.

“We’re not used to playing in rain like this,” midfielder Michael Farfan said. “That’s no excuse, we should have come out and done a lot better than we did. We were all just really heavy from the rain, and we couldn’t establish any rhythm.”

Neither team could muster much offensive punch, as the game repeatedly bogged down on the backline, with both teams controlling the ball but with little in the way of chances on goal.

“You cannot be upset when you just miss an opportunity,” Bolowich said. “I think you just have to be upset about the way we played.”

Overtime seemed to invigorate both teams, as it seemed that they each had more chances to score in those eight minutes than they had created in the previous 45.

The winning goal came on a through pass from attacker Enzo Martinez to a streaking Schuler.

“I just got a quick touch to get the ball out of the defender’s reach,” Schuler said. “And then it was basically one-on-one with the goalie.”

Schuler shot just to the right of the goalie, provoking a muted celebration as his benchmates trickled out from the dugout to walk to the McCaskill Center.

“It wasn’t great,” Schuler said. “We got our chances, obviously we didn’t score them, but thank God we put one in to close the game out.”



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.