UNC women’s soccer set to wow at Nike Classic

The No. 4 North Carolina women’s soccer team will open its season with a tough match against the No. 6 Stanford Cardinal Friday — but that’s nothing new.

As the Carolina Nike Classic begins Friday, the Tar Heels will face their first real challenge of the season.

“Our philosophy is always to play tough opponents early,” Coach Anson Dorrance said. “Obviously if we can’t beat them then our challenge is to spend the whole season trying to get better so that if we play them later in the season we’ll be in a better situation.”

UNC started out the non-conference schedule against UNC-Wilmington Aug. 12, with a 1-0 victory. But, The Tar Heels followed with a 2-1 loss to Missouri in a scrimmage Aug. 15. They outshot Missouri 14-5, but couldn’t capitalize on their many scoring chances.

“We had quite a few finishing opportunities that we just didn’t put away,” goalkeeper Bryane Heaberlin said. “It was definitely a good game to start the season — now we have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder.”

Last season, Heaberlin started 10 games in goal, appearing in 20. The junior will have to take on a larger role now that Anna Sieloff — a four year veteran — has graduated.

Heaberlin is just one of the many players who will have to shoulder a heavier loads during the 2014 season. Junior forward Summer Green will join her.

The Tar Heels will get a boost against Stanford with the return of Green, who was named to the U.S. national team and competed in the Under-20 World Cup in Canada during the summer.

“Summer is our most creative player,” Dorrance said. “When she gets the ball nobody knows what she’s going to do.”

With the departures of Crystal Dunn and Kealia Ohai — who combined to score 25 goals for the Tar Heels last year — UNC will look to Green to take on the role of a leading scorer. During the 2013 season, Green scored the third most goals on the team behind Dunn and Ohai, and tied for second in assists.

“I’m looking forward to playing at home,” Green said. “I feel like I haven’t played at home in forever.”

She’ll have plenty of opportunities to play at Fetzer Field this weekend, starting with Stanford on Friday at 7 p.m. and finishing against Ohio State at 2 p.m. Sunday.

“Against Stanford you can expect a really fun, entertaining, high paced game,” Heaberlin said. “We fully respect Stanford, but we respect them in a way that we want to bring our best to them and it should be a really interesting game.”

After that, the Tar Heels will have to prepare for a quick turnaround, playing Ohio State early Sunday to wrap up their schedule in the Nike Classic.

“It’ll definitely be difficult because Stanford is a really good team and so is Ohio State, so it’s two great teams back to back,” Heaberlin said. “But we’re fit enough and we’ve had a good preseason so we should be ready for it.”

sports@dailytarheel.com