The No. 2 UNC women’s soccer (13-2-0, 6-1 ACC) team lost to the No. 7 Stanford women (12-2-1, 4-2-1 ACC), 1-0, on Sunday afternoon. This is the Tar Heels' first loss in conference.
It was the first meeting between the two teams since September 2021, and their first meeting ever as conference rivals.
Neither team was able to maintain significant possession early, but the Tar Heels applied some pressure, recording three early shots, two from junior forward Maddie Dahlien.
The game was slowed around the halfway point of the first half by three injury timeouts, two for Stanford players and one for North Carolina. Despite that, UNC got a good chance in the 26th minute when they got a quick offensive turnaround down the field off of a takeaway. Olivia Thomas got a good look on goal, but shot the ball wide.
On the other end of the field, graduate goalkeeper Clare Gagne kept the score nil-nil with her first save on a shot from Stanford’s Maryn Wolf, who took a high cross and redirected it towards the bottom right corner of the goal.
Both teams played physically in the first half. North Carolina committed four fouls, and Stanford committed six, on top of a trio of yellow cards late in the first half. But UNC wasn’t able to capitalize off of the Cardinal’s antagonism, finishing the half with an offsides on junior midfielder Kate Faasse.
The second launched into a quicker pace than the first, but with the same physicality. Stanford had their best opportunity of the match on a wide open Tar Heel net, but the Cardinal’s Nya Harrison sent the ball wide.
The shots slowed as the teams traded possessions and miscommunications prevented UNC or Stanford from building momentum.
After putting up just their second shot of the half, North Carolina gave up two quick shots in the 74th and 75th minutes to Stanford, both shots to the top right of the goal but saved by Gagne.
