February 10, 2007

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by Ethan Lin

Chapel Hill -- Despite leading throughout most of Saturday's game, North Carolina was unable to hang on and walked away with a loss for the first time this season, 81-74 to Fork Union.

Jack Wooten led the Tar Heels with 19 points and 4 assists. Brad Jones and Patrick Moody had 8 rebounds apiece. Moody also scored 12 points.

"My shot was doing good, so I tried to take open shots while still playing point," said Wooten. "Our practice has been our best competition up until now, and the competition will be harder to come."

North Carolina led by as many as 14 points during the first half. Fork Union was able to whittle that lead down to 6 at halftime, when Carolina led 42-36. Fork Union battled back in the second half and exchanged the lead with Carolina until a 13-1 run late in the second half put the game past the Tar Heels for good.

"When we were down towards the end, we didn't use our time outs well," said UNC assistant coach Matt Brenner. "But our guys played very hard, and I'm completely happy with this team's performance."

"I feel like we shouldn't have let our heads down," said Terrance Petree, who contributed 9 points. "We played just as hard, they just hit their shots. We have nothing to be sad about, we just need to look to the next game."

Down by 4 points with 23 seconds to play, Carolina unable to even the score while Fork Union made 6 consecutive foul shots and the clock ran out to a final score of 82-74.

Both teams shot a low percentage from the floor, Fork Union with 39.4% for Fork Union and Carolina at 31.4%.

Several Fork Union Military Academy players scored in double figures. Donovan Monroe and Donald Sims led Fork Union with 17 and 15 points, respectively.

JB Tanner, who scored 32 points in Carolina's previous victory over Lenoir CC, had a quiet game with 8 points.