Women's Soccer Bounces Back, Stomps Terps

Sunday at Fetzer Field, she found out what can happen when the Tar Heels don't win.

They get angry.

Fifth-ranked UNC, coming off consecutive conference losses at Florida State and Wake Forest, scored three times in the game's opening five minutes and got goals from six different players as it rolled to a 6-0 victory against the Terrapins.

"I knew they'd be pretty fired up," said Higgins-Cirvoski, who was voted national player of the year in 1989. "When I heard that they had a 10-day break in between the Florida State loss and the Wake game, I felt sorry for Wake. But then they didn't get it done against Wake, and so obviously they were going to come out with a vengeance against us."

Sophomore forward Kim Patrick got the early scoring-spree started for UNC (14-3, 3-3 in the ACC) 39 seconds into the game when she punched in a ball that deflected off a Terp defender from 4 yards out.

Patrick was filling in for sophomore Susan Bush, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee Wednesday and will be out for the remainder of the season.

In the fourth minute, midfielder Jena Kluegel swung a corner kick from the left side that UM goalkeeper Riki-Ann Serrins caught in the air behind the line to stake UNC to a 2-0 lead.

The Tar Heels' third goal came less than two minutes later after freshman forward Alyssa Ramsey headed in a perfectly placed 30-yard cross from Kluegel, who was positioned on the left wing.

Five minutes and seven seconds had transpired, and the Tar Heels had already ensured that they would avoid the first three-game losing streak in school history.

Danielle Borgman, Catherine Reddick and Meredith Florance would later find the back of the net to round out the scoring for the Tar Heels.

"The whole problem has been we let teams hang around too long," said junior midfielder Anne Remy, who finished with two assists. "We have so many opportunities, and we don't put them away quickly, and then that gives them more confidence. And they start playing better and better and better.

"If we put them up early, they're pretty much done for. And so that was our whole plan - stick one early, and then we can keep playing."

The problem for the Tar Heels before Sunday was that they couldn't stick in anything early, late or in the middle.

They lost 1-0 at Wake Forest on Friday despite outshooting the Demon Deacons 28-5.

That defeat came on the heels of a

3-2 double-overtime loss at Florida State on Oct. 17, in which UNC outshot the Seminoles 22-9.

Those two conference losses marked the first two-game losing streak since 1982 for the Tar Heels and gave them three ACC losses in a season for the first time.

UNC hadn't lost three games in a season since 1980, when it finished

21-5.

"It was unbelievably frustrating because we were losing to the game of soccer, not necessarily to the opposing team," UNC senior defender Kalli Kamholz. "And it's not an offensive thing, it's not a defensive thing - it's a team thing. There was that one shot, that one opportunity, we were letting in."

The Terps (8-9, 1-5), who have never scored on the Tar Heels in 20 meetings between the teams, got no such opportunities Sunday, managing only two shots, both in the first half.

"We took two hits in a row, and those were obviously tough losses for us," UNC coach Anson Dorrance said. "And now we've got to figure out a way to sort of climb back in it. And no better way than to score a lot of goals and to play a lot of players."

The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu.