North Carolina’s offense kept coming and coming Thursday afternoon against N.C. State, producing four scores on 24 shots-on-goal — compared with the Wolfpack’s three — to defeat State 4-1 at Method Road.

“When you’re defending for 90 minutes, it’s tough to keep the ball out of the goal,” coach Laura Kerrigan said after the match. “We needed to possess the ball better so that we were attacking more. The problem was we were defending for 45 minutes in that second half. That’s tough to do.”

The No. 2 Tar Heels (17-1, 9-0) scored their first goal in the 33rd minute of the first half, but the Pack (8-6-2, 3-5) responded only 21 seconds later when sophomore Lindsay Vera scored off of an assist from senior Carol Tognetti. It would be the home team’s only score.

“We still had a plan at halftime about how we wanted to play, but we weren’t able to execute it in the second half,” Kerrigan said. “We didn’t create any opportunities in the second half. We defended the entire second half.”

The Pack came close to potential scoring breaks in the second half but had three off sides penalties in the second period.

“It was very frustrating in the second half to put ourselves in offsides positions several times,” Kerrigan said. “It breaks your rhythm. You’re moving around, and you have a ball through, and you’re in an opportunity to get in, and then we’re offsides. They really broke our rhythm.”

With two ACC games left this season, the Pack is in danger of missing the ACC tournament in two weeks. Kerrigan said after the game that Sunday’s game at Clemson will be huge for her team.

“It’s what we talked about after the game. From this moment on, our absolute focus is on beating Clemson,” Kerrigan said. “Beating Clemson would cement our spot in the ACC tournament and give us a good shot for the NCAA tournament. Our No. 1 focus right now has to be on Clemson.”

Freshmen Chantalle Dugas and Meredith Parrilla did not play in the match. Kerrigan cited their absences to “the violation of team rules.”