Carolina March :: Soccer

The same day Mike Copeland goes down with a torn ACL, the New York Times runs a story on the prevalance of the same injury in teenage girls. It's a bit alarmist, in the "Our children are in danger!" way, but throws out an interesting estimation - that ACL injuries in teenage girls are as much as five times as prevalent in their male counterparts. And naturally they go to Anson Dorrance for an opinion on the whole thing, and he knows where to put the blame:

“[E]verybody’s got a tournament. There’s the Raleigh Shootout, the Surf Cup in Southern California, and ding, ding, ding, they’re everywhere.” Dorrance was animated, his words coming out in a rush. “So now girls are going somewhere every two or three months and playing these inordinate number of matches. And you know what? They’re playing to survive. And the survival is not just the five games in three days. It’s the two or three weeks following. They’ve got a niggling this and niggling that — sprained ankles, swollen knees, aching backs. They were overplayed and they never rested. But part of what’s developing is this question of who’s tough enough, who can play through it?”

It sounded reasonable to me, since I couldn't recall a headline ACL tear on the UNC team, but the very next page brings one up:

When I was with Janelle, I could not help thinking of Amy Steadman, who was going to be one of the great American soccer players of her generation. In her junior year in high school, in Brevard, N.C., Parade magazine named her the top high-school-age defensive player in America, “the best of the best.” She was a captain of the U.S. women’s under-19 team, a future star of the women’s national team. She played for Anson Dorrance at U.N.C., and while I was talking to him one day, he pointed out beyond his office door to a gallery where the uniforms of his all-time greats, including Mia Hamm, were displayed. “She would have been one of those jerseys out there,” he said, referring to Amy.

But by the time I met her, Amy was 21 and had torn the A.C.L. in her right knee four times.

[...]

As Amy walked toward me the first time we met, her right leg was stiff and her whole gait crooked. She moved like a much older woman. If I hadn’t known her history, I would never have believed she had been an athlete, let alone an elite one. She had undergone, by her count, five operations on her right knee. Her mother counted eight, and believed that Amy did not put certain minor cuttings in the category of actual operations. She was done playing. She had been told she would need a knee replacement, maybe by the time she turned 30.

Amy told me about her final operation, recalling that when she came out of anesthesia, the surgeon seemed as if he was going to cry. He looked at her in silence for what seemed like a long time, trying to compose himself. Finally, he told her, “Amy, there was nothing in there left to fix.”

There's also Susan Bush, (two torn ACLs, '00 and '01), Ali Hawkins (last year), Ashlyn Harris (each knee, '05 and '06) and of course, Anson Dorrance himself, back in 1991. Even the coaching is dangerous. And that's just the first few pages of a Google search.

Anyway, the whole thing is a pretty good read. And of course, no mention of ACL injuries and Tar Heels is complete without the story of Jimmy Hitchcock.

The 2-1 victory over Notre Dame was the Heels' fourth in the NCAA Finals to take home their 18th title. This was the longest UNC had ever gone without winning a National Championship, a drought going back to 2003. Freshman Casey Nogueira and senior Heather O'Reilly each scored, as the Irish couldn't come back from the two-goal deficit.

On the men's side, Carolina March favorite UC Santa Barbara took home the championship holding off UCLA 2-1 on the snow-plowed field in Saint Louis. I guess the Bruins don't have the cold weather tolerance that the folks in Santa Barbara acquire. The Gauchos denied the Bruins their 100th NCAA title across all sports (UCSB now has two, the previous one being the water polo title in 1980.) and have left UCLA fans with only the consolation of some trivial win in a minor sport yesterday. Better luck next year, Bruins.

The game's just starting, on ESPN2. Those of you who, unlike me, can slip the binds of a day job let us know what's going on. The N&O has a rundown on the Bruins to get everyone up to speed.

We interrupt this blog to discuss an entirely different educational institution.

I got the chance to catch the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos - a gaucho being apparently a scary hat, judging by their logo - defeat Northwestern 3-2 to make it to the Final Four last night. As the student body voted the football team out of existence in 1992, the soccer team can draw a serious crowd, even on a holiday weekend, and the team responded, coming back from a 2-1 deficit at the break to completely control the second half. Midfielder Tyler Rosenlund had all three goals for UCSB - three times the number he had before the game - off of great passing a numerous breakaways from his teammates. The Gauchos join Wake, Virginia and UCLA, who took down Duke today, in St. Louis for the championship.

Speaking of Duke, the student fans at Harder Stadium managed to pack more wit and enthusiasm into one game than I've seen out of Cameron in five years. From the specific (Northwestern primary threat Brad North was politely informed that "Chicks Wear Headbands") to the general ("Our Girls Are Hotter" and "Where's Your Beach" are popular) to the postmodern (a "Vamanos Gauchos, Vamanos" morphed into "We're Bilingual") it was better than anything the folks in Durham have produced since ESPN began glorifying them in the mid-90's.

And since ECU's defeat of N.C. State apparently broke the internet in half - both StateFans Nation and Red and White from State were offline today - I did them a favor and scouted the UCSB-N.C. State women's basketball game today. Bad news, Wolfpack, your team will still be in the basement of the ACC this year. The Pack barely escaped 64-55, against an undersized Gaucho team with absolutely no outside shot. It took State until the second half to get a rebounding advantage on either end of the ball, and they were for the most part outhustled and outdriven by a Big West team. Against the bigger, more talented, Tar Heels, Terps and Blue Devils, you guys don't stand a chance.

UNC's women's soccer team beat the only team that took a win off them this season, topping Texas A&M 3-2, after being down both 1-0 and 2-1 in the game. It was the 25th straight win for the Heels, who continued their streak of never being beaten by the same collegiate opponent twice in a season. The Heels go to the College Cup next weekend in Cary where they will play three-loss UCLA, while Florida State and undefeated Notre Dame meet on the other side of the bracket.

The men's team dropped their first NCAA tournament game to Old Dominion last week. The Old Domionites proceeded to lose to my current hometown team, the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos, for whom I'll be cheering for tonight against Northwestern. Wake and Virginia have already punched their tickets for the semifinals in St. Louis and Duke plays UCLA for the fourth spot tomorrow.

Sure, the raving lunatics at ESPN may be looking ahead to March - because they are insane little marketing whores unable to enjoy sports being played in front of them - but the fall sports tournaments are still going on. To wit:

Following on the heels of last week's Cross Country ACC Tournament, the men's and women's soccer conference championships are getting underway. The Heels are the top seed on the women's side, as is to be expected after an undefeated conference season. Five members of the team are ACC All-Conference, including Offensive Player of he Year Yael Averbuch and 1st team member Heather O'Reilly. Carolina will start its attempt at an 18th championship in 20 yars against 8th seeded N.C. State at noon in Cary.

The men's team enters the tournament a seventh seed, and will face second seed Wake Forest also at noon. UNC was a mere 3-4-1 in conference, yet are still 10th in the nation. Of course, Wake Forest is currently ranked number one in both polls, despite their second seeding. I don't really understand that.

The six-team ACC Field Hockey Tournament - just think of it as soccer with sticks - is also this weekend, with 6th seed UNC meeting 3rd seed Duke Thursday at 4 at the Francis E. When-Did-It-Stop-Being-Called-Navy-Field Henry Stadium in Chapel Hill. The Heels had a rough conference season, going 1-4, but are 12-7 overall and ranked eighth in the country. Field hockey is not all that deep a collegiate sport - five of UNC's seven losses are to the top four teams in the country.

Lost in the coaching shuffle this week was the next matchup in the year-long UNC-Duke contest. Last weekend Duke beat UNC, 1-0 in men's soccer. Duke retained their #3 Soccer Times ranking with the win, while the Tar Heels, winless in October and on a three-game losing streak, dropped to 18th. UNC was able to right the ship in their final game of the season, beating Boston College 3-1. The soccer ACC tournament begins next week in Maryland, with seedings to be announced.

Duke remains in the lead of the Carlyle Cup race, by a score of 2.5 to 1, all points a predicated on there being no tournament rematches yadda yadda yadda. The next events are today, at the ACC Cross Country Championships.

North Carolina defeated Duke for the first time this year, racking up a 3-0 victory in women's soccer. The win extended UNC's current streak to 13, dating back to an opening season loss back in August. The Heels remain second in both soccer polls, behind undefeated and unanimous top-ranked Notre Dame.

The Duke game, along with a Virginia shutout earlier in the week helped defender Jessica Maxwell earn ACC player of the week, the fifth such honor to go to a Tar Heel in seven weeks. UNC has now defeated every ACC team in the Top 25 except top ten Wake Forest, who the Tar Heels face in the closing game of the season, on October 27th.

The win closes the Carlyle Cup standings to 1.5 to 1 in Duke's advantage, with all scores predicated on the two teams not meeting in the ACC field hockey, volleyball, or women's soccer playoffs. The next scheduled UNC-Duke meeting is in men's soccer, on October 20th in Durham.

It's time for a brief check-in with themen's and women's soccer teams, who started the season ranked first and third, respectively.

All that talk about the ACC being a weak conference in football? It doesn't really apply in soccer. Six of the top ten men's teams and three of the top ten women's are members of the ACC, and its made the conference schedule brutal. The men's team opened conference play with losses to N.C. State and current #2 Clemson before knocking off then top-ranked Virginia. UNC (9-2, 1-2) has three top ten teams remaining on the schedule, interspersed with local schools and a pair of lesser ACC schools. Their most recent match was an overtime squeaker over the Elon ~~College~~ University ~~Fightin' Christians~~ Phoenix.

I always had a fondness for Elon College's original nickname. Primarily because as a young lad I saw the Elon College Fightin' Christians take on the Guilford College Fightin' Quakers in football. Tensions ran high, and after the game a fight broke out.

The women's team hasn't lost since its season opener to #10 Texas A&M, and has racked up impressive wins over #14 Florida, #5 Portland, and #4 Florida State. The Tar Heels (10-1, 2-0) have given up five goals on the year, and have had two players named National Players of the Week so far this season.

I'm a little late in finding out about this, but UNC's Yale Averbuch scored off the opening kickoff of last Sunday's game against, oddly enough, Yale. Tar Heel Blue has the footage of what was the fastest goal in NCAA women's soccer history. Said footage has since migrated to ESPN Sportscenter, and it's telling that it wasn't until the latter network broadcast the kick that anyone actually asked Averbuch what brought that strategy on.

The Tar Heels are 4-1, after losing the opener to Texas A&M, and play this weekend in the Nike Portland Invitational - the name of which is shared between a soccer and volleyball tournament, apparently. It will be the first game for the full UNC Roster, as forward Casey Nogueira and midfielder Tobin Heath return from playing in Russia with the U.S. Under-20 National Team, joining Heather O'Reilly (U.S. National Team) and Robyn Gayle (Canadian National Team) who have both also missed games to play nationally this season.

Sure, it's that other kind of football, loved by the rest of the world and other suspicous foreigners, but UNC is still at the top of the list. No surprise there.

Wait, it's the men's team? The women's squad starts out third? I'm in Bizarro World.

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