Photo by Jeff Camarati/UNC Athletic Communications

By ZACH HAMILTON

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. –Nine months ago the North Carolina Tar Heels saw their hopes for an NCAA title dashed by the Louisville Cardinals. On Sunday, the Tar Heels earned a measure of revenge, and more importantly, showed that they are ready to make another strong run at the championship.

Goals from Rob Lovejoy and Billy Schuler led No. 3 UNC to a come-from-behind, 2-1 victory against No. 1 Louisville in front of a crowd of 2,825 at Fetzer Field.

With the score tied in the second half, UNC finally found the breakthrough in the 74th minute when Enzo Martinez played a good through-ball to Schuler, who held his run well and then slotted home past charging Cardinals goalkeeper Andre Boudreaux to give UNC a 2-1 lead.

“I drifted underneath and just held my line… and Enzo just played me through,” Schuler said of the play that led to his goal. “The goalie was coming out, and I just hit it with the outside of my right, just tried to curve it around to the far post and got it in.”

Louisville responded well after falling behind. Walker blasted a half volley from 25 yards out that went just wide of Goodwin’s right post, though the UNC ‘keeper had it covered.

In the 85th minute, Louisville won a corner, but UNC defended the set-piece well.The Cardinals could not muster another meaningful chance on goal before full time, andthe Tar Heels earned the 2-1 victory.

Somoano was pleased with his team’s performance and victory, but said North Carolina still has a lot to improve on, citing the defense as a concern.

“There’s a little bit of uncertainty there right now (defensively), and we just need to play through that,” Somoano said. “The good thing is as we’re trying to do that, we’restill winning games. So that’s positive.”

UNC threatened first in the match when Martinez blasted a shot just over the crossbar from 20 yards out from goal.

After a couple early UNC chances, Louisville (2-1-0) weathered the storm and was content to let the Tar Heels have most of the possession in the early going.

The Cardinals won an early corner and defender Austin Berry made good contact on the header, but UNC goalkeeper Scott Goodwin saved comfortably.

Just as they did in Friday night’s 5-1 home victory over Oregon State, the Tar Heels (3-0-0) fell behind after conceding a first-half goal.

In the 33rd minute, Louisville midfielder Kenney Walker played a diagonal longball over the top of UNC’s defense, and Cardinals forward Nick DeLeon collected the pass and slotted it home past the charging Goodwin for his first goal of the season.

Just moments later, UNC’s Lovejoy scored a rocket of a shot from just inside the top of the box to cancel out DeLeon’s goal and tie the game 1-1 in the 38th minute.

“Carlos McCrary came down the left side and fed me a ball to the right,” Lovejoy said of the play that led to the goal. “It was a perfectly paced ball, and Iwas able to get around one defender and just tuck it into the corner.”

The goal was Lovejoy’s third on the season and helped swing the momentum back in UNC’s favor just before halftime.

“Robbie’s got a big heart. He’s got guts,” UNC head coach Carlos Somoano saidof Lovejoy. “Robbie went for the kill (on the goal). He sharpened his knife and just stuckit in.”

After the interval, UNC again experienced a good deal of possession, courtesy ofthe sharp, quick distribution of passes from midfielders Martinez and Kirk Urso.

“We have a style that we like to play: passing, moving, high press,” Urso said. “Ithink we did those things well tonight.”

Martinez immediately had a chance after halftime. The crafty midfielder crossed-over a defender on the left end-line and fired from an acute angle which Boudreaux did well to save.

From the resulting corner, Urso found Martinez at the top of the box and Martinez fooled a defender on a shot fake and fired just wide of the left post.

As for Louisville, Cardinals head coach Ken Lolla said his team will benefit from the experience of playing back-to-back tough games against Wake Forest and UNC on the road.

“We got exactly out of the weekend what we wanted, in that we played two really good games on the road, home games for both of them, and it really stretched us,” Lolla said.

Lolla said the fact that his Louisville team faced fatigue and adversity in its past two games will only make the team better as the season progresses.

“The championships, whether it’s Big East or NCAA, are not won at home," Lolla said. "They’re won on the road, so you have to be able to deal with that."

Somoano said he was happy with the victory but insisted this season’s game against Louisville was not about revenge for UNC’s last-gasp loss to the Cardinals in last season’s College Cup semifinals. UNC senior Urso said his team battled well against a taller, physical Louisville team.

“There’s definitely areas where we can improve on which is a good thing, but I thought today we fought hard, and I’m glad we got the ‘W,'” Urso said.