Men's Soccer Run Ends Just Shy Of An ACC Title

Boston College's incredible run through the ACC men's soccer tournament came to a halt on Sunday afternoon, as the Eagles lost 3-1 to North Carolina in the championship game in Cary, N.C.

A match-up with the No. 3 team in the nation proved to be too much for the Eagles, who rarely created any great chances and were outplayed for most of the game.

UNC controlled the play for much of the first half. The Tar Heels created chances far more often than the Eagles, outshooting BC 8-2 in the opening 45 minutes. Their efforts were rewarded in the 38th minute, when Carlos McCrary headed a ball past BC keeper Justin Luthy for a 1-0 lead. Five minutes later, the Tar Heels struck again with a controversial goal. Ben Speas took a free kick from 40 yards out that Luthy seemed to be in position to play. However, two North Carolina players appeared to obstruct his path. The ball bounced past him and into the net and no foul was called, angering the BC players and upsetting head coach Ed Kelly.

"I'll have to see the replay on TV," Kelly said. "Our keeper says he was knocked down and that's what it looked like to me. Some of the players were saying it was a foul, and if that were the case, we would have been in a 1-1 game. We wouldn't have made some of the changes that we made which ended up costing us the third goal. The disappointing thing is, if the referee did make a mistake, it would have been really interesting to see how the rest of the game played out."

The Eagles did indeed manage to fight back into the game in the 62nd minute, when Kyle Bekker scored on a brilliantly taken free kick from 20 yards out. And while the Eagles upped the pressure considerably in the following minutes, they could not convert before the Tar Heels put the game out of reach with a goal in the 79th minute.

BC edged out Duke 2-1 on Friday to reach the championship game with Diego Medina-Mendez and Amit Aburmad recording goals. The Eagles were down early, as Duke converted on its first corner of the game. In the 15th minute, keeper Justin Luthy mishandled a ball that found its way onto the foot of a Duke player for an easy goal. BC upped the attack in the following minutes and came close to equalizing a few times. The Eagles found the elusive goal in the 25th minute when Medina-Mendez brought the ball into the box and found Colin Murphy on his left. Murphy then sent in a cross to Aburmad, who deflected the ball into the back of the net to level the score at one.

The second half had much less of a flow, as both teams played a more defensive style in hopes of preventing another goal. In the 66th minute, however, BC won a corner that proved to be decisive. Kyle Bekker took the ball on the left side and whipped in a cross to the middle of the box. Medina-Mendez was there for the Eagles, and he made no mistake, sending a one-timer into the back of the net. BC tightened up defensively and gave Duke very little to work with the rest of the game. The Blue Devils only managed one shot after BC took the lead and never threatened to score.

Though it was a disappointing end for the Eagles, Kelly was pleased with the way his team performed over the last five days.

"It was a good tournament for us" Kelly said. "We had a good game against Maryland and then played maybe our best game against Duke. We did very well when they went up 1-0 by coming back and scoring those two goals."