Wake Forest, UNC to compete for women’s soccer title

CARY, NC — Emily Morris scored her fourth goal of the season in the 73rd minute and Wake Forest beat Stanford 1-0 on Friday night to advance to the program’s first College Cup championship match.

Wake Forest (16-3-4), which will play North Carolina for the title on Monday, finished last year’s NCAA Tournament with a 10-3-5 record and a sixth-place finish in the ACC preseason poll. I was selected to finish ninth. ACC finish.

Three-time national champion Stanford (16-5-2) was hoping to return to the title game after losing to eventual champion Florida State last season to end its 36-game unbeaten streak.

Morris calmly took Sierra Seth’s cross out of the hands of Stanford goalkeeper Haley Craig, and it bounced off the goal line before Stanford defender Elise Evans cleared it.

Craig kept it a one-goal game with nine minutes remaining when she dived to her right to deny Kia Hanks’ close-range effort.

Stanford’s best chance to score came in the first half when Wake Forest goalkeeper Valentina Amaral deflected Andrea Catahata’s shot off the post and the ball trickled across the goal line before defender Kristen Johnson cleared it. gave

The game was a rematch of Wake Forest’s first win against a No. 1 ranked team when it defeated the Cardinal 1-0 in September on a goal by Emily Colton.

North Carolina 3, Duke 0

Kate Foss scored on the opening penalty kick, Olivia Thomas scored in the first half and North Carolina eliminated top-seeded Duke in the College Cup semifinal nightcap.

Fasse gave the second-seeded and eighth-ranked Tar Heels (21-5) a 1-0 lead just 9:25 into the game after he fouled Duke defender Nicole Chico. Foss led the nation with 20 goals.

North Carolina took a two-goal halftime lead when Thomas took a pass from Bella Gatineau and scored at 23:55. It was Thomas’ eighth goal of the season and Gatineau’s second assist.

Maddie Dahlin made it 3-0 in the 59th minute with an assist. It was Dehlen’s first goal of the season and Fosse’s third assist of the season.

Claire Gigan had five saves for the Tar Heels. Leah Freeman made two saves for Duke.

North Carolina has appeared in all 43 NCAA Tournaments and won 21 of them.

Duke (18-3-1) was playing in its fifth College Cup and first since 2017 with 29 appearances overall. The Blue Devils entered as the top seed for the first time but fell to 6-45-5 all-time against UNC.

Blue Devils coach Robbie Church previously announced he would retire at the end of the season and hand the reins to associate head coach Karen Hall. He had 398 career victories.

The Blue Devils (18-3-1) beat the Tar Heels twice during the regular season for the first time in program history and lost to them 2-1 in the championship match of the ACC Tournament.

North Carolina defeated Wake Forest 1-0 at home in its only match this season.

This report used information from The Associated Press.