Dif_¶ cult schedule hasn't phased Heels

Facing a seemingly impossible schedule North Carolina refuses to wilt under the heat of big games.

The team has just wrapped up its West Coast trip which marks the end of the most brutal part of the nonconference schedule: five preseason top 20 teams including current consensus No. 1 Notre Dame.

In collegiate soccer one loss does not considerably hurt a team's national championship aspirations.

 With this in mind" coach Anson Dorrance set this year's schedule with the intent of tempering the players into a battle-tested unit.

""What is kind of cool to me about this year's schedule is … in the first seven games we've played five teams in the top 15"" Dorrance said, among them the No. 1 and No. 3 teams in the country.

I do not think there is a collegiate schedule out there in our sport that is that aggressive"" he said. We're pretty pleased with the caliber of the competition that we've had.""

The Tar Heels have come out of these trials swimmingly: They sit at 5-1-1" having played then-No. 3 Stanford to a draw and now-No. 1 Notre Dame to a close loss.

UNC currently sits at No. 3 and with a much greater understanding of what the team needs to do in order to beat a Notre Dame or a Stanford if it faces such a squad again in the NCAA Tournament.

A 5-0 victory against No. 15 Santa Clara on Sunday just two days after the tie with Stanford" is arguably the most positive result of the year.

""What I liked over the weekend is we played a great game against Stanford" but there were some corrections that I felt we could try to make the game against Santa Clara even better Dorrance said.

 The players are beginning to believe that ‘Maybe this is the way to play"' because our performance in the second half against Santa Clara was probably the best second half we've played all year.""

Dorrance has been most pleased with what he called the ""coach-ability"" of his players.

""When you're trying to drive a team to their potential" every player always has an idea of how the game should be played" so part of your job as a coach is to try to convince them that the way you want the game played is going to be the more effective way to play.""



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