UNC falls to Tigers in ACC tournament

The North Carolina men’s soccer team has thrived this season off of early goals.

Heading into Tuesday’s ACC Tournament quarterfinal game on the road at Clemson, the Tar Heels were 8-0-2 on the year when scoring the first goal of a match.

And though junior forward Cooper Vandermaas-Peeler did the honors earlier than usual, finding the net just 29 seconds into the game, the Tar Heels didn’t put together a full game defensively, allowing the Tigers to pounce back with two late goals and defeat UNC 2-1.

With the loss, UNC failed to advance to the ACC Tournament semifinals for the first time since 2009.

“We expected more than that,” said sophomore midfielder Raby George. “I thought we had a good enough team to go all the way, and it’s just disappointing to fall the way we did.”

George said UNC’s offensive attack veered away from its game plan after the first half, as Clemson forced the Tar Heels to play the Tigers’ game.

After firing five shots in the opening period, UNC didn’t take any in the second half.

“We went in and started the game exactly like we talked about — we followed the game plan — and got an early goal thanks to that,” George said. “Then I feel like we fell into their way of playing, which is just shooting the ball and hoping for the best.”

UNC’s lack of production on offense put pressure on the defense, coach Carlos Somoano said.

“I think as the second half went on, we just weren’t able to hold on to the ball well enough,” Somoano said.

“We were just defending for too long, They were putting us under a lot of pressure and at some point we have to be able to relieve some of that pressure with some attack ourselves.”

The Clemson attack took advantage of the extra possession, scoring its two goals in just a six-minute span.

For junior defender Boyd Okwuonu, the Tar Heels were unable to put the mistakes that led to the first goal they allowed behind them, which resulted in Clemson’s game-winner.

And following the game, a disheartened Okwuonu realized what the Tar Heels were unable to while the clock was ticking — that it’s not how a team starts, but how it finishes.

“We just gotta learn from our mistakes, close out games better than we did today,” he said. “Our overall performance has got to get better for 90 minutes. We have to stay tuned in for every minute, and that was our problem today.”

sports@dailytarheel.com