The No. 6 North Carolina men’s soccer team has had many questions this season.
The first, and biggest headed into the season — who would replace an All-ACC goalkeeper Scott Goodwin.
Junior Brendan Moore got the starting spot from day one, and since then, he’s shown that he deserves the job.
Moore did what he was supposed to do on Clemson midfielder Thomas McNamara’s penalty kick in the first minute of UNC’s 2-1 overtime loss to the Tigers. Moore blocked the initial shot, but the ball rebounded straight back to McNamara, and he had no problem putting the goal away on his second chance.
“Honestly I was pretty shocked when he called the penalty,” Moore said. “Nonetheless he called the penalty. First reaction is to just do whatever I can do to keep the ball out of the goal, and the guy was pretty crafty but I was able to read him and then get a save on it initially.
“Unfortunately the ball went right back to him so, there’s not much I can do there.”
Moore also saved a penalty kick earlier this season against Wake Forest, and went on to record seven saves for the Tar Heels against an aggressive Clemson offense, which ended the game with 14 shots.
With Clemson up 1-0 from the start, that meant UNC had to try and solve another, much more challenging problem — score a few goals.
UNC has struggled to find the back of the net for most of the season, but in the 68th minute Verneri Valimaa showed that he could be a solution to that problem.
