Feb. 22, 2006

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - North Carolina's women's soccer team will play a challenging spring exhibition schedule in 2006 as Anson Dorrance begins to prepare his most inexperienced team since 1995 for a rugged regular season schedule in the fall.

UNC is losing 10 seniors, including five starters, off its 2005 Atlantic Coast Conference champion and NCAA quarterfinalist squad which finished 23-1-1.

The last time Carolina lost a senior class this large was 1994 when nine seniors graduated off the 1994 NCAA championship team.

UNC plays exhibition matches this spring against Duke, Florida, UAB, Georgia and Florida State as well as a series of games in the ACC Round Robin at SAS Soccer Park in Cary, N.C.

The highlights of the schedule are matches against the Russian Under-20 National Team in Charlotte, N.C. on March 29 and against the Mexican National Team in Birmingham, Ala. on April 8.

All players who competed for Carolina this past fall are eligible to play during the spring season but plans now call for only the 17 players who were freshmen, sophomores and juniors on the 2005 squad to participate as well as 2005 seniors Lindsay Tarpley, Lori Chalupny, Kendall Fletcher, Leea Murphy and Kacey White who will appear in selected competitions.