With less than 20 minutes remaining in the game, N.C. State and top-ranked North Carolina stood tied at one. Then the momentum flooded in the Wolfpack’s favor on an unlikely goal from senior midfielder Santiago Fusilier.
From 35 yards out, Fusilier fired a shot at the left corner of the goal that somehow found the net.
State, however, didn’t sit long on its one-goal lead. Just five minutes later, freshman forward Alan Sanchez converted a penalty kick off a foul to give the Pack the 3-1 lead it never relinquished.
Freshman midfielder Jorge Mora, who scored State’s first goal, said after the final goal he began to think about the win even with less than fourteen minutes remaining.
“Yeah, you can’t help but start to look at the clock,” Mora said. “But you still have to play hard until the last minute.”
Sanchez echoed Mora’s focus on continuing to play hard with a two-goal lead.
“We had to keep on going,” Sanchez said. “Just like the score is 0-0.”
Coach George Tarantini said the play of the freshmen were key in the game.
“We had a plan,” he said. “And we definitely got some help from some freshmen who played pretty well.”
With the win the Pack moves to 3-2 on the season and gains its first victory over the rival Tar Heels since 1997. And for senior forward Rami Ghanayem, it’s the realization of four years of hard work.
“It’s been a battle with these guys since my freshman year,” Ghanayem said. “And showing the heart we showed out here tonight and get the [win] — it’s incredible.”
Ghanayem, who played high school soccer in Durham, said he ratchets up his game to a higher level for a game like this.
“It’s a different level,” he said. “It’s kind of my hometown — your adrenaline’s going when you see the lights and all these people and you still have to stay relaxed. But then again you have to die out there — you have to leave your sole out there.”
For the second game in a row State scored three goals — an offensive explosion compared to the one goal the team scored over the first three games of the season.
Tarantini, who earlier in the week expressed the importance of creating more scoring opportunities, said he was pleased with way the team attacked the goal.
“We tried to go for a lot of goals,” he said. “They were not always successful, but we attacked — I never felt like we could not score.”
Mora said the scoring boost was just a product of doing what they do in practice.
“We worked on it all week,” Mora said. “We worked on attacking and going forward with speed. When you go up against a great team like Carolina you can’t fear them or be hesitant. You have to give it all you have and that’s what we did.”
As far as what the win does for a team coming in unranked and 2-2 to start the season in non-conference play, Ghanayem said it was “huge.”
“This is our next step,” Ghanayem said. “We’re going to continue from here. We had a little slump at the beginning but now we’re nothing but uphill from here. Hopefully we can build on this and get a [win] Saturday.”
It doesn’t get any easier for State as it takes on Virginia, another conference opponent ranked in Soccer America’s top-10, Saturday at 2 p.m. But for now it is just time to celebrate.
Asked what feelings he had after beating the No. 1 team in the country, Tarantini simply said, “I’m proud.”