BYU women’s soccer stuns North Carolina with incredible second half comeback to advance to College Cup
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- BYU players pose with the NCAA semifinalist trophy after beating North Carolina 4-3 at South Field in an NCAA Tournament match on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
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- BYU players kiss the NCAA semifinalist trophy after beating North Carolina at South Field on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
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- BYU’s Olivia Smith-Griffitts (2) challenges North Carolina’s Mia Oliaro during an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight match at South Field on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
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- The BYU women’s soccer team celebrates winning an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight match against North Carolina, beating the Tar Heels 4-3 at South Field on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
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- The North Carolina women’s soccer team celebrates a goal scored in the second minute of an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight match against BYU on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
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- BYU’s Ellie Walbruch (15) races through a pair of North Carolina defenders with the ball during an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight match at South Field on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
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- BYU’s Izzi Stratton (24) moves the ball past a North Carolina defender during an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight match at South Field on Friday. Nov. 24, 2023.
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- North Carolina goalkeeper Emmie Allen dives on a BYU shot during and NCAA women’s soccer Elite Eight match at South Field on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
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- The BYU crowd reacts to play during an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight women’s soccer match at South Field on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
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- BYU players hold up the NCAA semifinalist trophy after a 4-3 victory against North Carolina at South Field on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023.
North Carolina’s Anson Dorrance has been coaching women’s soccer for 47 years and has won 22 NCAA titles.
When asked if he’d ever seen anything like what took place at South Field in Friday’s Elite Eight matchup with BYU, he shook his head.
“I’ve never seen that … in my life,” Dorrance said.
If Dorrance hasn’t seen it, it probably has never happened before. Not in the Elite Eight. Not against Dorrance and the storied Tar Heels program. Not in a snow storm in November.
The Cougars’ stunning 4-3 victory over North Carolina is perhaps the most incredible and unlikely comeback in the history of the NCAA Tournament. BYU trailed 3-0 at halftime and still faced that three-goal deficit with 30 minutes left in the match. The Tar Heels, who had given up just 15 goals in 22 previous matches this season, were playing terrific soccer and appeared to be on its way to the College Cup.
The No. 1 seed Cougars looked to be headed out of the tournament.
After the match, seniors Jamie Shepherd, Bella Folino, Olivia Wade-Katoa and Laveni Vaka all agreed the BYU players collectively never felt they were out of the match.
“I don’t think we ever got to a point where we thought, ‘We’re not coming back from this,'” Vaka said.
What happened over the next 30 minutes was some of the most brilliant offensive soccer a sellout crowd at South Field had ever witnessed.
Folino finally got the Cougars on the board in the 61st minute when she gathered in a deflected shot from Wade-Katoa and blasted the ball home to make the score 3-1.
With ten minutes left in the match, the Cougars kicked their offense into high gear. Brecken Mozingo’s corner kick bent into the goal in the 81st minute to trim the deficit to 3-2. Less than two minutes later, Ellie Walbruch ripped a shot that Tar Heels goalkeeper Emmie Allen managed to bat away. Folino was in the right spot for the carom and scored to tie the match at 3-3 in the 82nd minute.
The home crowd had worked itself into a frenzy at that point and BYU rode that wave of emotion to the game-winning goal. Mozingo beat two defenders inside the 18 and sprawled on the ground but managed to nudge a pass to Wade-Katoa before she fell.
The senior midfielder made a quick move to clear one defender then smashed a left-footed shot past the goalkeeper for the 4-3 lead with just 1:40 showing on the clock.
“I got the ball at the top and just had to take a deep breath before because I was like, this is it right here,” Wade-Katoa said. “I’m just so proud of every single person. We have so much grit. This team never gives up. That’s something that I think we’ve really proved to ourselves this year is we’ve come back from being down in the past and I think that was no different today.”
The final horn sounded and the BYU crowd surged onto the field to celebrate with the Cougars. The Tar Heel players were left in tears with only the hugs of their teammates and coaches to console them in a very painful loss.
After managing just five shots in the first half, BYU stressed the North Carolina’s vaunted defense with 20 in the second half, and the Tar Heels finally broke.
“A few of us kind of stayed after in the team room after our halftime talk and just kind of regrouped and gathered together,” Shepherd said. “We said ‘We’ve got this’ and you could feel that when we came out for the second half. We were confident and more physical and looking to go forward. We just came out and played our game. When we’re playing our game, we score goals and we scored four amazing, beautiful goals.”
This wasn’t the first time North Carolina stood in the way of BYU in the NCAA Tournament.
Most recently, the Tar Heels eliminated the Cougars 3-2 in the 2022 Sweet 16. In 2012, North Carolina took a 2-1 double overtime thriller in the Elite Eight and prevented No. 1 seed BYU from making its first ever national semifinal.
On Friday, the Tar Heels tried to crush the Cougars’ dreams again.
BYU wasn’t having it.
“That was just an extraordinary comeback for a great team,” Dorrance said. “They (BYU) are great in the individual duel. They’re great at carving people one v. one and then their finishing capability is also extraordinary. We also try to build our game on the one v. one artist and you could see they had those artists all over the field. And they scored some magnificent goals.”
Ally Sentnor was terrific in the first half with two goals and an assist in what had to be one of the best halves of soccer all year for the Tar Heels.
But the second half was all BYU.
“The start of the game wasn’t quite what we anticipated,” Cougar coach Jennifer Rockwood said. “I don’t think we all saw that coming. At halftime we just talked about getting one more goal. We’ve scored over 75 goals this season and this group has done it for over 25 games. We just challenged them to believe that we could get one more goal and just take one goal at a time. It was an unbelievable effort. You could see the momentum shifting throughout the second half. The first goal came and you could kind of feel it.”
No. 1 seed BYU (20-2-3) moves on to the nationals semifinals in Cary, N.C., on Dec. 1 against No. 2 Stanford (19-0-4), which topped No. 5 Nebraska 2-1 in double overtime on Friday.
The other semifinal will see No. 1 overall seed Florida State (19-0-1), a 3-0 victor over No. 7 Pittsburgh, against another No. 1 seed, Clemson, which defeated No. 2 Penn State, 2-1, in the other quarterfinal.
