Friday, November 17
Cary, N.C.
3:00 PM
Colorado
12-6-4, 5-4-1
0
at
1
North Carolina
17-2-2, 8-0-2
1
2
F
Colorado
0
0
0
North Carolina
1
0
1
Photo by: Mike Greening
No. 2 North Carolina Edges Buffs 1-0 In Second Round Of NCAA Tournament
November 17, 2017 | Soccer
CARY, N.C. – No. 2 North Carolina scored in the 26th minute and held on for a 1-0 victory over Colorado on Friday evening at WakeMed Soccer Park. The Buffs ended their season with a 12-6-4 record, while UNC improved to 17-2-2.
HOW IT HAPPENED: Marty Puketapu nearly put the Buffs in front in the third minute, sending a shot from the left wing towards the far post, but UNC goalkeeper Samantha Leshnak made a diving save to deflect it away.
The Tar Heels got on the board in the 26th minute. Jalen Tompkins stopped an initial shot by Sydney Spruill, but the rebound went to the center of the goal mouth and Bridgette Andrzejewski tapped it in for the score.
UNC had two chances in the 50th minute, the first when Tompkins misplayed a ball. But Hannah Cardenas was behind her to clear the shot. Moments later, Tompkins made a save to keep the score 1-0.
One minute later, Julia Ashley scored for UNC, but was offsides on the play, negating the goal.
In the 65th minute, CU had two shots on goal as Taylor Kornieck and Erin Greening both had chances, but both were saved.
The Buffs had possession for much of the final 15 minutes, but were unable to get a shot past Leshnak.
KEY STATISTICS: North Carolina outshot CU 19-11 in the match, but the shots were an even 8-8 over the final 45 minutes. Tompkins finished with seven saves.
NOTES: The Buffs dropped to 0-5 all-time against North Carolina ... Tompkins finished the season with CU's single-season goals-against average record (0.58), edging Kirstin Radlinski's previous mark from 2008 by .001 ... the team's 0.61 GAA broke the previous school record of 0.69 from 2003 ... Tompkins's .882 save percentage broke Radlinski's mark of .855 from 2008 (Tompkins's 2016 save percentage of .855 is third all-time) ... it is the eighth time CU has advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in its 10th postseason appearance ... CU reached the third round in 2006 and 2013.
UP NEXT: The loss ends CU's season. North Carolina will take on Princeton in the third round on Sunday.
POSTGAME QUOTES:
Danny Sanchez, head coach
On the game
"I'm disappointed we didn't get the result, but when you really look at it, [I'm proud], and I'm not just saying I'm really proud of the effort because the season is over. I feel like I want to keep playing. I want this team to continue to build. If you look at the course of the game, credit to North Carolina, they did more on the night for sure. But at the end of the night, JJ only had to make one tough save and unfortunately the rebound fell to one of them. I thought we defended great. I thought the back four were fantastic. Kelsey [Aaknes], Hannah [Cardenas], Alex [Vidger] and Joss [Orejel] were fantastic. And I'm really proud of some of our players who stepped up with players out. Sarah [Kinzner]'s battling the flu and she gutted it out and played 60 minutes tonight; I'm really proud of her. Megan [Massey], Nancy [Best], Hannah Scheid played her most minutes as a Buff in her last game and played her best game. Taylor was all over the place and took a knock in the first half, but was not going to back down. Our front runners had to do a lot of work on both sides of the ball. I'm leaving someone out, but I'm really proud of the effort of the group. We needed something to fall our way and it didn't, so there's no shame in that. But we laid it all on the line so I'm proud of that.
On the team's scoring chances
"I thought Marty had a good chance early in the game. Something had to fall our way and it didn't happen. I was really proud of the last 30 minutes. We changed our tactics; we had to open the game up a little bit and I thought that we created some good chances in the box. Not a clear chance, but they only had one clear chance as well. We had a lot of half chances. We needed just a little more in the final third. I really liked how we pressed and felt we had energy. Our outside backs were getting forward. Joss and especially Kelsey were all over the place. [It was] just not enough, but I'm proud of energy we brought and we battled to the end"
On the seniors
"Although we weren't able to get Courtney Fedor a lot of minutes late in the season, her leadership and her commitment—she's just a super Buff and I'm really proud of everything she's done. Hannah Scheid, not being able to play last year, then being injured most of this year, then coming in tonight and just doing whatever we wanted, no matter what—she was committed to whatever role and positive. I'm really pleased with her. And this was Joss's best season. We challenged her last spring to raise her game, raise her leadership and have her best season as a senior and I thought she was lights out tonight. She was fantastic, she defended great, got forward, and served some really good balls on the corner. I'm really proud of this group of seniors, but also when I look forward, we started one seniors tonight. So we're really excited about the future of this program, really excited about the direction that we're going. The more you get in these big games, the more experience you get, the more comfortable you get. I thought we were more comfortable tonight than we were last year against South Carolina [in the second round]. You can't win these games if you don't get in them and sometimes you have to lose them for a bit. We're really champing at the bit to get going in 2018."
Taylor Kornieck, sophomore
On the game
"In the beginning we were just kind of defending most of the time and once they scored, we really picked it up. I was really disappointed with how it turned out because I feel like we had a lot of chances, but things just didn't go our way."
On the goal UNC scored
"It was just a really unfortunate situation. JJ really had a good save, but we just weren't prepared for the follow-up."
On CU's scoring chances
"We had that cross from Tatum, but just didn't have the runners. And I think our corners were really dangerous. If we just finish one of them, I feel like it would be a completely different game."
HOW IT HAPPENED: Marty Puketapu nearly put the Buffs in front in the third minute, sending a shot from the left wing towards the far post, but UNC goalkeeper Samantha Leshnak made a diving save to deflect it away.
The Tar Heels got on the board in the 26th minute. Jalen Tompkins stopped an initial shot by Sydney Spruill, but the rebound went to the center of the goal mouth and Bridgette Andrzejewski tapped it in for the score.
UNC had two chances in the 50th minute, the first when Tompkins misplayed a ball. But Hannah Cardenas was behind her to clear the shot. Moments later, Tompkins made a save to keep the score 1-0.
One minute later, Julia Ashley scored for UNC, but was offsides on the play, negating the goal.
In the 65th minute, CU had two shots on goal as Taylor Kornieck and Erin Greening both had chances, but both were saved.
The Buffs had possession for much of the final 15 minutes, but were unable to get a shot past Leshnak.
KEY STATISTICS: North Carolina outshot CU 19-11 in the match, but the shots were an even 8-8 over the final 45 minutes. Tompkins finished with seven saves.
NOTES: The Buffs dropped to 0-5 all-time against North Carolina ... Tompkins finished the season with CU's single-season goals-against average record (0.58), edging Kirstin Radlinski's previous mark from 2008 by .001 ... the team's 0.61 GAA broke the previous school record of 0.69 from 2003 ... Tompkins's .882 save percentage broke Radlinski's mark of .855 from 2008 (Tompkins's 2016 save percentage of .855 is third all-time) ... it is the eighth time CU has advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in its 10th postseason appearance ... CU reached the third round in 2006 and 2013.
UP NEXT: The loss ends CU's season. North Carolina will take on Princeton in the third round on Sunday.
POSTGAME QUOTES:
Danny Sanchez, head coach
On the game
"I'm disappointed we didn't get the result, but when you really look at it, [I'm proud], and I'm not just saying I'm really proud of the effort because the season is over. I feel like I want to keep playing. I want this team to continue to build. If you look at the course of the game, credit to North Carolina, they did more on the night for sure. But at the end of the night, JJ only had to make one tough save and unfortunately the rebound fell to one of them. I thought we defended great. I thought the back four were fantastic. Kelsey [Aaknes], Hannah [Cardenas], Alex [Vidger] and Joss [Orejel] were fantastic. And I'm really proud of some of our players who stepped up with players out. Sarah [Kinzner]'s battling the flu and she gutted it out and played 60 minutes tonight; I'm really proud of her. Megan [Massey], Nancy [Best], Hannah Scheid played her most minutes as a Buff in her last game and played her best game. Taylor was all over the place and took a knock in the first half, but was not going to back down. Our front runners had to do a lot of work on both sides of the ball. I'm leaving someone out, but I'm really proud of the effort of the group. We needed something to fall our way and it didn't, so there's no shame in that. But we laid it all on the line so I'm proud of that.
On the team's scoring chances
"I thought Marty had a good chance early in the game. Something had to fall our way and it didn't happen. I was really proud of the last 30 minutes. We changed our tactics; we had to open the game up a little bit and I thought that we created some good chances in the box. Not a clear chance, but they only had one clear chance as well. We had a lot of half chances. We needed just a little more in the final third. I really liked how we pressed and felt we had energy. Our outside backs were getting forward. Joss and especially Kelsey were all over the place. [It was] just not enough, but I'm proud of energy we brought and we battled to the end"
On the seniors
"Although we weren't able to get Courtney Fedor a lot of minutes late in the season, her leadership and her commitment—she's just a super Buff and I'm really proud of everything she's done. Hannah Scheid, not being able to play last year, then being injured most of this year, then coming in tonight and just doing whatever we wanted, no matter what—she was committed to whatever role and positive. I'm really pleased with her. And this was Joss's best season. We challenged her last spring to raise her game, raise her leadership and have her best season as a senior and I thought she was lights out tonight. She was fantastic, she defended great, got forward, and served some really good balls on the corner. I'm really proud of this group of seniors, but also when I look forward, we started one seniors tonight. So we're really excited about the future of this program, really excited about the direction that we're going. The more you get in these big games, the more experience you get, the more comfortable you get. I thought we were more comfortable tonight than we were last year against South Carolina [in the second round]. You can't win these games if you don't get in them and sometimes you have to lose them for a bit. We're really champing at the bit to get going in 2018."
Taylor Kornieck, sophomore
On the game
"In the beginning we were just kind of defending most of the time and once they scored, we really picked it up. I was really disappointed with how it turned out because I feel like we had a lot of chances, but things just didn't go our way."
On the goal UNC scored
"It was just a really unfortunate situation. JJ really had a good save, but we just weren't prepared for the follow-up."
On CU's scoring chances
"We had that cross from Tatum, but just didn't have the runners. And I think our corners were really dangerous. If we just finish one of them, I feel like it would be a completely different game."
Team Stats
COLO
UNC
Goals
0
1
Shots
11
19
Shots on Goal
3
8
Saves
7
3
Corners
2
6
Fouls
7
3
Scoring Plays
Andrzejewski,B (7)
Assisted By: Spruill,Sydney
score off the rebound into the lower lef
25:46
Game Leaders
Players
Shots
3
SOG
1
Goals
0
Assists
0
Shots
2
SOG
0
Goals
0
Assists
0
Shots
2
SOG
1
Goals
0
Assists
0
Shots
2
SOG
1
Goals
0
Assists
0
Players Mentioned
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GK
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