June 3, 2007

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND - While the UNC women's soccer team members were not quite as rowdy as they pulled into the parking lot at Finley Field a little after midnight on Tuesday, May 29 as they were when they left it 12 days earlier, they were pretty close. Twenty-five hours after they arrived at the airport in Auckland, New Zealand and after they finally put a 40-plus hour Monday to rest, the Heels were home at last.

For many of the players, the stint in Auckland was the highlight of the trip. New Zealand greeted the team in style by producing two brilliant rainbows for the team to take in as they waited for their rental vans at the airport, nearly as spectacular as the sunset that awaited them as they disembarked in the Gold Coast of Australia. The Tar Heels' fortunes would prove much better in New Zealand, though.

On their first full day on the North Island, the team swarmed into its vans, which were just barely big enough to fit the entire group and its luggage, and made the three hour trip north to Paihia and the Bay of Islands. The area was the first in the country visited by Europeans, but it appealed to the Tar Heels more for its beauty than its history. After a picnic lunch, most of the group took a boat ride around the islands and, escorted by a phalanx of dolphins, even zipped through the "Hole in the Rock," an iconic natural rock formation on Piercy Island.

Their second full day in New Zealand brought a matchup against the World Cup qualifying New Zealand national team, ranked 23rd by FIFA. The match marked the first home game against international competition for the Kiwis since October 1998, so the home crowd bristled with excitement as they filled Bill McKinlay Park to capacity. The quality of the game would not disappoint them, but the outcome probably did. The Tar Heels put on a show, exhibiting high quality tackling and passing with a bit of flair added for good measure. Despite earning six corner kicks in the first half, the Tar Heels did not get on the board until the second, when in the 75th minute Jaime Gilbert redirected a Casey Nogueira blast from a few yards out. Sterling Smith almost added another goal a few minutes later, but her shot banged of the post. New Zealand had a few good counter attacks, once driving a shot off the cross bar and another time forcing UNC goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris to make a spectacular diving save. In the end, though, the Heels withstood the pressure and exhaustion and prevailed, bringing their record for the trip to 1-2.

The team spent their final day in the Southern Hemisphere relaxing and wandering around downtown Auckland before battling traffic and arriving at the airport just in time to make their flight.

Billy Scott, UNC Class of 2007, graduated in May from Carolina with a degree in journalism. A student manager for the Tar Heel women's soccer team for the past four years, Scott blogged several articles for TarHeelBlue.com, recapping the Tar Heel women's soccer exhibition tour of Australia and New Zealand.