The No. 24 NC State women’s soccer team will take on No. 4 UNC-Chapel Hill in the ACC Championship semifinal Friday in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Wolfpack (14-4-1, 6-3-1 ACC) overwhelmed Notre Dame Sunday 4-1 to advance to the semifinal, while the Tar Heels (13-2-2, 8-0-2 ACC) topped Florida State in the quarterfinal.
The Wolfpack has not been to the semifinals of the ACC Championship since 1995 when it fell to former conference foe Maryland. The last time NC State advanced to the finals was 1989, when the team fell 5-3 to the Tar Heels.
Despite the lack of success in the ACC Tournament historically (5-15-3 all-time record), the Pack is certainly capable of beating the Tar Heels. The last time the two squads faced each other, the Pack came out on top of the then No. 7-ranked Heels by a score of 1-0 in Chapel Hill.
Sophomore midfielder Tziarra King will need to give the Heels some trouble if NC State is to pull off the upset this time. King has scored five of the Pack’s six goals in the last two matches, including a hat trick in the defeat of Notre Dame. She has 34 points on the year, the sixth-best total in the NCAA and the best in the ACC.
The defense has also been a plus for head coach Tim Santoro’s squad. Freshman Lulu Guttenberger has slotted in nicely on the back line and has been a key part of a defense that has only allowed two goals in the past six games. The Bayern Munich product was named No. 31 on Top Drawer Soccer’s Top-100 Freshmen list this season, a testament to her significant contributions. Senior Cailyn Boch, juniors Ella Bonner and Hannah Keogh and sophomore Krissi Schuster have also helped to form a tough defensive line for the Pack.
Junior goalkeeper Sydney Wootten owns a 0.89 goals against average, an improvement over her already impressive mark of 1.08 last season. She also has recorded eight shutouts in 2017, the third-best in the conference.
The Pack will need to contain North Carolina’s Dorian Bailey and Bridgette Andrzejewski. Bailey leads the team with 20 points while Andrzejewski has 19 this season. The Tar Heels are averaging 2.41 goals per game, and holding opponents to just 0.59 goals per game thanks to an impressive defense and the work of goalkeeper Samantha Leshnak.
UNC will come into the match having not lost since Sept. 7, going 11-0-2 in that stretch and ending up second in the ACC. The Heels did not lose a match during conference play, racking up eight wins and just two ties. They also own victories in eight ranked matchups throughout the season.
For NC State, perhaps its most convincing victory was in its previous match, the win over the Fighting Irish. The team will be coming into the semifinal matchup with a six-game winning streak, all of which have been conference games. The Pack is outscoring its opponents 14-4 in that span and 35-15 overall.
The date with the Tar Heels will arguably be the team’s toughest match of the season, but the Wolfpack has shown it is capable of winning games like this. Regardless of the outcome, the Pack will be in a good position for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The match can be seen on RSN or the ACC Network and is slated to start at 8 p.m. Friday at MUSC Health Stadium in Charleston, South Carolina. The winner of the match will face the winner of Duke and Virginia Sunday in the finals.
