Women's soccer finishes regular season with improbable title

Before this season, very few people believed the North Carolina women’s soccer team could win the ACC regular-season title — not even Coach Anson Dorrance thought it was likely.

“If someone told me that’s what’s going to happen this year, I would have said that’s one of the signs of the apocalypse,” he said.

Dorrance might want to take cover because his team finished tied with Florida State for the ACC title after a 2-1 overtime victory over Syracuse in the regular season finale Sunday.

The Tar Heels needed a victory to win the title and were propelled by two juniors, Summer Green and Paige Nielson.

“(Green) looks like she’s back on top of her game, and when she’s on top of her game, we go to a completely different level, so that was fun,” Dorrance said.

Green struck early in the 17th minute and gave the Tar Heels an early 1-0 lead after finishing a cross from sophomore Amber Munerlyn.

The Tar Heels were able to hold the lead for most of the game, but minutes away from clinching the championship, the UNC defense allowed the equalizer to Syracuse junior Maya Pitts.

The two teams played to a standstill, which would only be solved by overtime.

“Honestly, it was the last 20 minutes of our season, and we wanted to win the ACC regular season really bad, and so we wanted to score quick,” Nielson said.

And score quick, she did.

Five minutes into the first overtime period, Nielson finished the championship-winning goal, getting the assist from Green and sophomore Joanna Boyles.

“It was just a really good feeling,” Green said. “I’ve never won (a conference championship) yet, so it was really cool.”

A championship team is a far cry from what Dorrance saw in his team at the beginning of the year.

Heading into the season, the Tar Heels lost six players who are now playing professionally and as the season went on, lost another four players to season- or career-ending injuries.

Dorrance credits their success to the work ethic of his players.

He said that two weeks ago before the Duke game, he wanted to take a lighter week of practice, but there was one problem — the team wouldn’t stop working.

At least that’s what the GPS trackers he uses for practice said. He uses the devices to track player energy exertion.

“The GPS units were telling us that their player loads were over the top,” he said. “The thing that’s hilarious is that practice wasn’t designed that way — they turned it into that.

“When your kids are outworking the practice plan and you struggle to taper into games because they’re working too hard, you’ve got a good team. So that’s what our kids have done this year, and I’m incredibly proud.”

sports@dailytarheel.com