The women’s soccer team will look for its second conference win of the season when it plays No. 3 UNC-Chapel Hill Friday night at 7 p.m. The Pack and junior goalkeeper Kim Kern will be pressed to continue playing stingy defense, as State comes in allowing .60 goals per game, but will face the challenge of slowing down the Heels, who average 3.27 goals per game.
Junior forward Kristina Argiroff said she has looked forward to the showdown with the Tar Heels and opportunity to knock off the Pack’s highly-ranked rival all season long.
“We have really been looking forward to this game all year,” junior forward Kristina Argiroff said. “We truly believe this is the year we can beat them and we’ve been working really hard to limit their opportunities.”
So far this season, the Wolfpack women are 7-4 overall and have a 1-1-0 record in ACC play after losing their last game to Boston College. The Tar Heels dropped to No. 3 in the rankings after their own loss to the Golden Eagles, a 3-2 defeat last week, Carolina’s first loss of the 2010 season.
N.C. State’s last meeting with North Carolina, which took place in October of 2009, did not end well for the Pack. State lost 5-0, but junior midfielder Kara Blosser said she feels no pressure on her team.
“It’s Carolina,” Blosser said. “You look at our record against them and we have one win against them ever and two ties, so the pressure is on them. Since all of the pressure is on them we can just go out and play our game. They’re going to play a 3-4-3, which we’ve been practicing for all week. So we should just go out have fun.”
The Pack has focused on the Carolina game all week, with practices continuing despite the rain and bad weather, which has presented a challenge. Due to conditions, Thursday’s practice had to be replaced at the last minute with a film study.
“It’s definitely been rough preparing for the game this week because it’s been raining,” Blosser said. “Yesterday we got to watch film for an hour and a half and we went out today to prepare and everything and we had a really good practice, so hopefully we’ll be ready.”
The Pack has received solid contributions from a number of sources, with Argiroff tied for the team lead in scoring with freshman forward Jennie Krauser and junior forward Tanya Cain. Each player has 12 points on four goals and four assists each. Kern has only allowed one goal before halftime the entire season and made an astounding ten saves against Boston College in the loss Sunday afternoon.
Fans attending the game can show support by wearing red and taking part in the “Block out the Blue” promotion, which will run throughout the evening.
