Matt Riley/Virginia Athletics
No. 18 Virginia Men's Soccer Battles North Carolina to 2-2 Draw
The Cavaliers played far from their best performance and were held to just four total shots in the entire match. But those four shots were just barely enough.
The No. 18 Virginia men's soccer team fell behind 2-0, but rallied in the second half to salvage a 2-2 draw at North Carolina in the regular season finale on Friday night in Chapel Hill.
UVA entered the night needing a victory to clinch the No. 1 seed in next week's ACC Men's Soccer Championship. Instead, the Cavaliers will have to settle for the No. 3 seed due to tying with the Tar Heels.
Given the way UNC thoroughly outplayed UVA for most of the match, the Cavaliers were fortunate to escape Chapel Hill with a draw. The Heels outshot the Hoos 7-0 in the first half and 14-4 for the match. Exactly ten minutes in, one of those shots found the back of the net to give North Carolina a very early lead. With a free kick near midfield, Sam Williams sent the ball near the left edge of the box, where Tim Schels got a piece of it to send the ball ahead to a cutting Akeim Clarke, who collected the ball and released a right-footed shot. Virginia goalie Holden Brown was screened by a UVA defender and Clarke's shot skipped past him and into the back right corner of the goal.
As evidenced by the zero attempted shots in the first half, Virginia came out completely flat and was unable to materialize any offensive pressure through the first 45 minutes of the match.
The Tar Heels doubled their lead just 22 seconds into the second half as Schels found Cameron Fisher with a pass inside the box on the right side and Fisher sent a perfectly placed shot inside the far post to make it 2-0 UNC.
The regular season finale was bordering on disaster for the Cavaliers, who found themselves trailing 2-0 and still struggling to string passes together in the midfield.
Finally, the tides began to turn in favor of the Hoos with a single play in the 55th minute. Daniel Mangarov sent a short pass out wide to Paul Wiese near midfield and Wiese sent a gorgeous pass over the UNC defense that perfectly bounced to the foot of the streaking Michael Tsicoulias, who touched it ahead and then took a shot just as two Tar Heel defenders were collapsing onto him. His shot went just under the leg of UNC goalkeeper Marco Saborio-Perez and into the goal to get the Cavaliers on the board.
Three minutes later, Daniel Mangarov was fouled just as he was attempting to take a shot from within the penalty area. Mangarov was awarded a penalty kick and confidently converted it, placing his shot into the left corner to pull UVA even with UNC.
That 2-2 score would hold for the remainder of the game despite North Carolina putting two more shots on goal in the second half. Holden Brown bounced back nicely after giving up the two goals and finished with four saves overall to help Virginia salvage the draw.
UVA concludes the regular season with a 9-4-3 overall record and a 5-1-2 mark in ACC play. A win would have given Virginia both the ACC Coastal title over Duke and the No. 1 seed in the ACC Championship over Syracuse. Instead, the Blue Devils, who took down Virginia Tech on Friday, will have the No. 1 seed in the ACC Men's Soccer Championship. And despite UVA finishing with an identical conference record as Syracuse and owning the head-to-head tiebreaker, the Orange will receive the No. 2 seed in the ACC Championship as the champions of the ACC Atlantic division.
So, Virginia will have to settle for the No. 3 seed, which is still remarkable considering the Cavaliers were voted to finish last in the ACC Coastal in the preseason coaches poll. UVA was ranked No. 11 in the country by the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer selection committee, as announced on Friday night.
Virginia will host the winner of No. 6 Pittsburgh and No. 11 NC State in the quarterfinals of the ACC Men's Soccer Championship on Sunday, November 6th at Klockner Stadium.
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