FSU Drops Heartbreaker To UNC 2-1 In Overtime Kirsten van den Ven scores the lone Seminole goal in the loss.

9/27/07

Tallahassee, Fla. – In a game that lasted three hours and 34 minutes featuring an overtime period and two weather delays covering an hour and 49 minutes, No. 6 North Carolina (7-2-0, 1-0-0) staged a come-from-behind, 2-1 overtime victory over No. 10 Florida State (5-3-1, 0-1-0) on Thursday evening at the Seminole Soccer Complex. UNC’s Meghan Klingenberg scored the golden goal in the 95th minute to give the Tar Heels the win in the conference opener for both schools.

Florida State had its chances earlier in the first overtime but was unable to convert on three consecutive corner kick opportunities. In the 95th minute, North Carolina got two scoring chances converting on the second when Klingenberg collected a rebound and found the right corner of the net for the game-winner and her second goal of the season.

“That was a tough way to lose the game,” said head coach Mark Krikorian. “I thought our kids played hard for the entire match and we gave ourselves a chance to win. But Carolina is a good team, they are resilient. They fought hard and found a way to get a result tonight. We battled them pretty well and if we are fortunate enough later in the season to see them again I think we would look forward to that opportunity.”

The Seminoles had their first scoring chance of the game off their only corner kick of the half. Junior Mami Yamaguchi took the corner and sent a bender to the back post where Katrin Schmidt was able to get a header on the ball but the shot went high over the crossbar.

At 29:02, freshman keeper Erin McNulty made a great save tipping the ball over the crossbar following a header shot by Allie Long. Over four minutes later, McNulty had to make another great save this time off a blast of the foot of junior Yael Averbuch. Averbuch sent a rocket shot from 27 yards outs to the left side of the goal where McNulty made a diving save. The ball bounced away and was cleared safely by the Seminole defense.

With 17 minutes remaining in the first half, the game was postponed for 51 minutes due to threatening weather in the Tallahassee area.

The game resumed at 8:19 pm and over the final 17 minutes, North Carolina outshot Florida State 4-1 but the score remained tied at zero. The Tar Heels held an 8-2 shot advantage over the Seminoles, while maintaining a 6-1 corner kick lead at the half.

In the 47th minute, Florida State took a 1-0 lead on senior Kirsten van de Ven’s third goal of the season. Yamaguchi sent a beautiful no look pass behind her back to van de Ven who dribbled to her right inside the 18. As van de Ven put a foot into the ball, a sliding UNC defender made contact at the same time causing the ball to float toward the direction of the goal. The ball took one bounce and spun into the upper right 90 of the goal.

Two minutes later play was suspended for the second time in the game as bad weather once again rolled through the Tallahassee area. After a 58 minute delay and the bad weather gone from harms way, both teams took the field for the completion of the game.

“We knew that Carolina was going to come out fast,” explain van de Ven. “They are great athletes. But I think we did okay tonight. We really fought hard. It was great that we got the early lead in the second half but it was unfortunate that we had to stop play because of the weather. I don’t think the weather affected us at all, I thought we came out pretty strong after the first delay.”

Following an offside call by Florida State in the 57th minute, UNC quickly played the ball on the restart. Just seconds later, Casey Nogueira caught everyone off guard blasting a shot from about 30 yards out that deflected into the lower right corner for her team leading sixth goal of the season and 1-1 tie.

The second half was played evenly between the two squads but UNC once again had the lead in shots (9-5) and corners (5-4).

With the score tied at one following the first 90 minutes of action, FSU and UNC would head into overtime for the fifth time in the series and for the third time in the last four meetings.

The Seminoles controlled the early follow of play in the first few minutes of overtime receiving three corner kicks, but it was Klingenberg’s goal at 94:58 that gave the Tar Heels the win.

McNulty had a solid game in net for the Seminoles as she made five saves. UNC’s Ashlyn Harris played the entire game in goal for the Tar Heels making four saves on the evening. Yael Averbuch led all players with five shots including three shots on goal. The second largest crowd was on hand in the early going as 1,926 fans packed the stands of the Seminole Soccer Complex to witness a great battle between two top 10 nationally ranked teams.

Florida State will next face NC State at the Seminole Soccer Complex on Sunday, September 30 with kick-off set for 12 noon. The game will be shown on tape delay on Sun Sports beginning at 1:00 pm. If you missed the action from tonight’s game against North Carolina, you can catch the game in its entirety On Demand at ACC Select.