Oct. 11, 2007

Box Score

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Before the seventh largest women's soccer crowd in Fetzer Field history, the 11th-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels edged the Duke Blue Devils 2-1 Thursday night in the annual battle of arch-rivals whose campuses sit only eight miles apart. All the goals were scored in the first 25 minutes of the match with UNC's Casey Nogueira scoring her second successive game-winner for the Tar Heels in front of a raucous crowd of 4,717.

With the victory the Tar Heels earned one point in the 2007-08 Carlyle Cup competition, the annual all-sports trophy for which the two schools vie. The Cup is sponsored by Carlyle and Company and the schools have each won it three times in the seven-year history along with last year's competition ending in a tie. With the win Thursday UNC increases its lead in the Carlyle Cup this year to two points to one-half point.

Thursday's game was a typical back and forth battle between the two rivals as Carolina improved to 10-3 overall and 4-1 in the ACC. Duke, now 7-3-3 and 2-2-1 in the ACC, had great success against the Tar Heels in recent years, going 1-1-1 against Carolina in its last three trips to Fetzer Field. The last three meetings at Fetzer have now been decided by 2-1 scores.

UNC outshot the Blue Devils 16-8 and Carolina had the edge in corner kicks 8-2. Both goalkeepers were outstanding in the match with Allison Lipsher making seven saves for Duke and Ashlyn Harris stopping three shots for the Tar Heels.

Harris made two spectacular saves in a flurry of action midway through the second half to protect the UNC lead. Lipsher had a trio of diving and leaping saves to deny shots by Yael Averbuch and Tobin Heath.

Carolina got on the scoreboard first at 3:26 of the match, the earliest the Tar Heels have scored in a match this season and only the second time this season Carolina has scored in the first 10 minutes of a match. Nikki Washington served a long cross from the deep right corner to the center of the penalty area where Whitney Engen pounced on the ball for her third goal of the campaign. Engen was able to elude her defenders and found herself unmarked, tapping the ball into an open net.

With Carolina scoring the first goal of the game, the Tar Heels are now 145-0-1 in their last 146 games in which they got on the scoreboard first. The last time UNC lost a game in which it scored first was October 17, 2000 when Carolina fell 3-2 at Florida State in double overtime. The only tie in the last 146 games in which UNC scored first was November 1, 2002 when the Heels and Maryland tied 1-1 at Fetzer Field.

Carolina's lead was short-lived however as Elisabeth Redmond of the Blue Devils scored her third goal of the season at 15:30. A defensive clearing pass was intercepted by Duke's Lorraine Quinn who split the Tar Heel defense with her feed to Redmond who dribbled into the box and finished beautifully into the upper right corner to tie the score.

Carolina got the game winner in the 25th minute off the foot of Casey Nogueira. Nogueira also scored the game-winner last Sunday against Maryland in a 2-1 overtime win at College Park, Md.

Whitney Engen and Yael Averbuch set up the winning goal. Engen gained possession in the midfield, advanced the ball and then fed Averbuch cross field to the left side where Averbuch slipped the ball to Nogueira. The sophomore from Raleigh, N.C. dribbled into the box one-on-one with Lipsher and finished into the top right corner with one of her patented hard blasts.

Neither team scored again but it was not for lack of chances. At 41:39, Tobin Heath sent a shot from 20 yards out that was headed under the cross bar before Lipsher pushed it over to keep the margin at one goal.

Duke appeared to have tied the match around the 56 minute mark with Tar Heel head coach Anson Dorrance admitting he thought at least one of Duke's shots had crossed the line. But replays showed the Devils were tantalizing close to equaling the match only to be denied by Ashlyn Harris. At 55:58, Kendall Bradley of Duke was in point blank range at the two-yard line but Harris knocked her shot off the cross bar. Bradley's rebound shot six seconds later hit the bar again and on the third try Harris covered the ball up inches away from it crossing the line.

The most dangerous scoring chances later in the match came at 64:08 when Lipsher made a sprawling save on a blistering shot by Averbuch and and when Lipsher denied Averbuch on a free kick just outside the penalty area at 68:19.

Duke's last great opportunity to tie came at 82:59 as the Blue Devils' Gretchen Miller had a shot from 25 yards at a Tar Heel empty net. The ball had squirted out top after a scramble in front of the cage but Miller sent her attempt wide to the right.

Carolina will take three days off before hosting nationally-ranked Wake Forest Sunday at Fetzer Field at 1 p.m.