UNC men's soccer snags 2-0 victory against Coastal Carolina

The North Carolina men’s soccer team started its 2011 season — and Carlos Somoano’s career as head coach — with a 2-0 exhibition win Friday night against Coastal Carolina in Conway, S.C.

Senior midfielder Kirk Urso, who is just getting back to playing after taking the summer off to nurse a leg injury, said it was nice to get back on the pitch and compete against another team.

“It was a good thing to get a game in after we’ve been kicking each other for the past eight days,” he said. “Overall I felt pretty good. I’m just getting my fitness back and getting the details down, getting that sharpness back.”

Despite the decisive final score against the Chanticleers, Friday night’s victory was no easy feat for UNC.

Both Tar Heel goals came in the second half, and Coastal Carolina played the role of aggressor for the first 45 minutes.

The Tar Heels dodged an early bullet when the Chanticleers had a breakaway opportunity in the opening minutes and shot just wide of the goal.

The stalemate ended in the 67th minute when redshirt junior Billy Schuler got possession of a loose ball in the box and snuck it by the Chanticleer goalkeeper.

Schuler’s goal seemed to put a little pep in the Tar Heels’ step. Following the goal, UNC looked the part of the nation’s No. 3 team, controlling possession and pace throughout the match’s final 23 minutes.

It didn’t take the Tar Heels long to adjust under new head coach Carlos Somoano. An assistant on former coach Elmar Bolowich’s staff, Somoano took charge of the team after Bolowich left Chapel Hill for Creighton following the 2010 season.

Urso said not much has changed except that Somoano is leading practices now.

“The only thing that changes is Carlos is the head coach, but we’ve had Carlos and Jeff (Negalha) for the past three years so we feel comfortable with them,” he said. “We also had them in the spring, so it wasn’t a big change. But things change every year, so Carlos is just working to find a system that works for us.

“You’d want a little more time in between, but this is how preseason goes, and we look at it as an opportunity to sort things out,” Urso said. “It’s a great opportunity and a good test to take another step forward.”

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