WINSTON-SALEM — North Carolina men’s soccer coach Carlos Somoano watched with his usual stone-faced gaze as his defense stonewalled the Demon Deacons one last time to seal the win Friday night.
Trailing the Tar Heels by a goal with four seconds left in the game, Wake Forest earned a corner kick and one last chance to tie the score.
Even with its goalie Michael Lisch pulled up for the desperation play, Wake Forest came up empty again, and the Tar Heels beat the Demon Deacons 1-0 for their first ACC win of the year.
“I think that’s the most important time not to be emotional,” Somoano said. “That the most important time to just say ‘Look, we’re fine. We can deal with this.’ One second left, 10 seconds left, 10 minutes left — we’re fine. We’re well prepared to deal with this.”
North Carolina took the lead early in the second half after a tightly contested scoreless first period. In typical ACC fashion, the match was physical and entertaining to the crowd of more than 4,000 at Spry Stadium.
But the game-winning goal was anticlimactic.
In the 58th minute, senior Kirk Urso fired a corner kick into the box where the ball was batted around a handful of times before it found the side netting. Jordan Gafa was credited with the goal after the game, but at the time Rob Lovejoy was tabbed as the scorer.
Lovejoy was quick to defer to Urso.
“Yeah, I’m going to give that one to Kirk,” Lovejoy said. “It was just good execution on the cross in because we practice that every week. He made a great cross, and there was just a lot of confusion in the box, and it just happened to go in.”
