The fourth-seeded North Carolina men’s soccer team’s 2010 campaign was nine seconds from an abrupt conclusion Sunday, but sophomore midfielder Enzo Martinez wasn’t ready to go home just yet.
With his team trailing Michigan State 1-0 in the waning moments of its third-round NCAA Tournament clash at Fetzer Field, Martinez received a deflected corner kick along the top of the box, took a touch to his right and unfurled a perfect strike that curled into the top-right corner of the goal to resuscitate UNC’s title hopes and send the game into overtime.
Almost thirty minutes later, he was sprinting shirtless across the pitch, hollering in ecstasy after converting his final penalty kick to give UNC a 5-4 PK advantage and book the Tar Heels a place in the NCAA quarterfinals.
“I’ve never dreamed of anything like this happening to me,” Martinez said. “It’s easy to have 10 seconds left and you just put your head down, but we went, and we can say this time that we battled until the last second.”
Martinez’s equalizer was UNC’s first goal in almost 325 minutes of play and capped a furious barrage that saw a Kirk Urso free kick attempt pushed aside by diving Spartan keeper Avery Steinlage and a Stephen McCarthy penalty appeal denied by officials.
Prior to UNC’s late surge, the game had been a back-and-forth affair with each squad creating its fair share of chances and putting three shots on goal during the first half.
Shortly after the break, Martinez foreshadowed his late heroics with a shot nearly identical to his equalizer, but Steinlage managed one of his nine saves by punching the ball over the crossbar.
The Spartans’ defensive fortitude was rewarded 64 minutes into the game when midfielder Cyrus Saydee drew first blood after an hour spent terrorizing UNC defender Matt Rose down the right side of the field.
“He was having a lot of success down there,” Michigan State coach Damon Rensing said. “Once that ball was slotted in, I was pretty comfortable that he was going to finish it.”
