University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Wake Forest
Carolina Women's Soccer Team Clinches ACC Regular-Season Title Outright
October 28, 2005 | Women's Soccer
Oct. 28, 2005
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - North Carolina's women's soccer team scored three first-half goals to build an insurmountable lead and then rode the shutout performance of senior goalkeeper Aly Winget as the No. 3 Tar Heels defeated Wake Forest 4-0 Friday night at Spry Soccer Stadium on the Wake Forest University campus with a crowd of 2,409 in attendance. With the victory, North Carolina clinched the 2005 Atlantic Coast Conference regular season championship outright and with it the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament which begins Wednesday at SAS Soccer Stadium in Cary, N.C.
Carolina finished the regular season with a record of 17-1 and 9-1 in the ACC. Wake Forest, which hosts Miami on Sunday, fell to 8-7-1 on the season and 3-6 in the ACC. Carolina has now won the ACC regular-season title 16 times in the 19 years of ACC play which began in 1987. UNC has won all 16 of those titles outright. The win was the 596th of head coach Anson Dorrance's career as he edges closer to the 600-victory plateau.
Winget's solo shutout performance marked her 34th career solo shutout and in the process she tied the ACC record in that category which she now shares with Melissa Carr of Duke and Katie Carson of Clemson. Winget went all 90 minutes in goal for the Tar Heels and made two saves. For Wake Forest, goalkeeper Kaitlyn Doe made eight saves while allowing four goals.
Offensively the Tar Heels went against type on their season-long performance by finding the back of the net three times in the first half.
In the first 17 games of the season North Carolina had scored only 23 of its 62 goals in the first half of games before exploding in the first 45 minutes tonight. Carolina's first half goals came from junior forward Heather O'Reilly, sophomore midfielder Jaime Gilbert and junior forward Elizabeth Guess. Guess also scored for Carolina in the 90th minute to push the final score to 4-0. Senior midfielder Kacey White, the ACC leader in assists this season, assisted on three of the Tar Heels' four goals.
The Tar Heels jumped on top of the Demon Deacons at the 16:37 mark as Heather O'Reilly took a pass from Kacey White and sent it past Demon Deacon goalkeeper Kaitlyn Doe for a 1-0 lead. The goal was O'Reilly's ACC leading 15th goal of the season and the third time this season she has scored the game-winning goal for the Tar Heels. White sent a pass from the far right side of the pitch that went to O'Reilly near post and she finished from about five yards out.
Carolina increased its lead to 2-0 at 31:45 of the match on sophomore midfielder Jaime Gilbert's seventh goal of the season. She was assisted by both junior forward Elizabeth Guess and senior forward Lindsay Tarpley on the goal. Tarpley fed a pass to Guess just in front of the penalty box where Guess stopped the ball and pushed it to Gilbert who finished off the scoring opportunity.
The Tar Heels would score two more times during the night, both on goals by Elizabeth Guess and both in the final minute of play of each half. Guess finished the evening with five points on the night, equaling her career high for both goals and points in a match. Guess has now scored two goals in a game eight times in her career and Friday was the fourth time in her career that the Athens, Ga., native has totaled five points in a match.
The first of the Guess goals came at 44:26 of the match as Kacey White sent a pass from the left side of the box that Guess headed in on the near post.
Neither team got on the scoreboard again for over 45 minutes as the Tar Heels struck again with just 23 seconds left in the match. White sent a free kick that Guess headed in for her ninth goal of the season. White's three assists on the night gives her an ACC-leading 16 on the campaign.
Kacey White's 16 assists now equal the most she has had in a season while a Tar Heel. She also had 16 in 2003. Her 30 points are a season high for White passing the 28 she had in 2003. Guess now has a single season high 26 points. She had 24 points last year.
O'Reilly's goal gives her 44 for her career and she has moved into 15th place in that statistic in UNC history. Lindsay Tarpley's assist was the 54th of her career and she now ranks fifth by herself in UNC lore in that area. White has 49 career assists as she moved into the No. 11 spot in Carolina history.
