The No. 25 NC State women’s soccer team defeated Western Carolina 1-0 Sunday afternoon at Dail Soccer Stadium after the Pack earned a draw in its first conference match Friday against No. 5 Virginia.  

NC State moved to 7-1-1 and Western Carolina dropped to 3-5-1 as the Wolfpack won its fourth-straight result.

“Friday [against Virginia] took a lot out of us,” head coach Tim Santoro said. “We still controlled the game and would have liked to have been a little bit better in the final third and scored a couple more goals.”

After a back-and-forth battle to begin the match, the Pack finally got on the board in the 33rd minute. Junior Maxine Blackwood was taken down by a Catamount defender inside the Western Carolina box and the Wolfpack was awarded a penalty kick. Sophomore Ricci Walkling took the kick, sending it past the Catamount goalkeeper and putting NC State up 1-0. The goal was her third of the season.

“A lot of players had to get subbed out, but our team is good enough that the players who came in can play,” Walkling said.  “We were kind of slow with the ball… but we got the win and can be happy about it because now we have to prepare for Boston [College] on Thursday.”

The Wolfpack showed off its depth with six substitutions in the first half and seventeen total. A combination of the heat and a quick turnaround from its hard-fought draw Friday was a factor.  Despite tired legs, the Wolfpack controlled the pace of the first half and had seven shots compared to Western’s three.  

The Pack played aggressively in the second half, keeping possession and peppering the Western goal with constant shots and corner kicks. Goalkeeper Sydney Wootten saw minimal action during the latter half as NC State kept the ball on the Western side for a significant amount of time.

Sophomore midfielder and the Wolfpack’s leading scorer Tziarra King went down in the 69th minute due to what appeared to be a lower leg injury. King attempted to launch a shot from inside the box and was met with a Western defender’s leg. She would miss the remainder of the match after being helped off the field.

In total, the Pack outshot Western Carolina 19-4 as both squads felt the fatigue of the blistering heat. Sixteen players saw action for NC State while Western sent out 19 players over the course of the match.

“We had a couple people that couldn’t play today or played very little just because of some things that were nagging from Friday,” Santoro said. “We knew we were going to have to go deep into the bench and they gave us a good pick-me-up today to rest some people and it was important that our bench had a role today.”

Despite a final offensive push by the Catamounts, the Wolfpack held on to win 1-0. 

“Credit to Western, they were really organized defensively and they played hard,” Santoro said. “Anytime time you win you take it and move on.”

The Wolfpack will go back to conference play when it hosts Boston College on Thursday, September 21 at 7 p.m. at Dail Soccer Field.