Tar Heels try to forget JMU loss

The first loss of the season for the No. 1 North Carolina men’s soccer team was a heartbreaker — one the Tar Heels probably didn’t deserve.

James Madison converted a controversial penalty kick in the first half of their 1-0 win Tuesday night and coach Carlos Somoano had no problem calling it the wrong call.

“It was not a good call. You can’t deny that,” he said. “I’m not going to pretend or sit here and tell you that it’s OK — it wasn’t OK to have that call go against us.”

Somoano qualified that by saying that while the referee had a bad night, his team also failed to perform to its full potential.

But the Tar Heels have to put that behind them as No. 15 Wake Forest comes to Fetzer Field tonight.

“(The goal) might have (affected us) in the run of play we might have let it get to us a little bit,” senior goalkeeper Scott Goodwin said. “It might be part of the reason that we didn’t necessarily get it all back together mentally, but at this point, it’s over now. It’s done.”

The Tar Heels practiced Wednesday and Thursday at Finley Fields, not with a specific focus on Wake Forest but with goal of refocusing.

Senior midfielder Martin Murphy echoed that sentiment and expressed his confidence in the Tar Heels’ master plan.

“We just need to be focused on what we’ve been working on in practice and stick to what we know,” Murphy said, “because what we’re doing is right.”

The Demon Deacons (3-1-1) come to Chapel Hill after dropping their first game of the season as well.

The unranked Louisville Cardinals knocked off Wake Forest 3-2 in overtime Tuesday night in Louisville.

With both teams hungry for redemption, Friday’s game promises to be an intense and physical 90 minutes — much like last season’s contest in Winston-Salem.

Last year, UNC topped Wake Forest 1-0, but that time they were riding high after a 4-1 defeat of James Madison.

Since the Dukes bested UNC this year, Somoano knows that to hang with Wake Forest his team will need to have its sharpest mental game.

“We need to have a little bit more mental intensity,” Somoano said. “We have to be a little bit better prepared to deal with failure, in a way, we have to be ready to deal with a tough game.

“When things start going against us … We have to deal with that better, and I think that’s what we didn’t do against James Madison.”
The Tar Heels are looking to move past the JMU game quickly and improve to 2-0-0 in ACC play.

Though the team is still young and learning the play together in Somoano’s style, the seniors on the squad know exactly what it takes to compete in the ACC.

“We’ve stressed some stuff that we want to do that we really want to make sure that we’re taking our game plan and making that happen,” Goodwin said.

“We definitely want to be the aggressor. We want to come in a lot more aggressive, go after them and keep the emphasis on getting a result.”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.