COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS – It wasn’t without some late drama, but Anson Dorrance’s North Carolina Tar Heels picked up their 20th NCAA Women’s Soccer championship Sunday, defeating Stanford 1-0 on a rainy day at Texas A&M’s Aggie Soccer Stadium.

A razor-thin offside call nullified a strike from Stanford forward Christen Press that would have tied the game in the 89th minute. That said, the Tar Heels were dominant in the first 45 minutes of the match and missed several chances to stretch their lead.

The Tar Heels got the only offense they would need in the 3rd minute of the match, when Jessica McDonald finished a cross from Casey Nogueira, on a move started by Tobin Heath. The Tar Heels finish the season at 23-3-1 and win back-to-back NCAA titles, plus the 3rd title in the 4-year careers of this season’s graduating seniors.

Stanford, which had star forward Kelley O’Hara sent off for a 2nd bookable offense in the 73rd minute, suffered its 1st loss of the season and finishes at 25-1.

Tar Heels coach Anson Dorrance, who reminded the media that the program also won a title under the old AIAW oversight (meaning 21 national titles overall), expressed his happiness for the group, especially the seniors.

“I can’t express properly how good I feel right now and how proud I am of this group,” Dorrance said. “There’s a certain nostalgia, a lot of these kids here came in as freshman and had a remarkable freshman year, and for them to finish off in this fashion I couldn’t be prouder. I’m going to miss them, so I have mixed emotions right now.”

Stanford coach Paul Ratcliffe congratulated North Carolina, and expressed hope for the future.

“(It will give us) more hunger, that we can accomplish our goal of winning a national title,” he said. “We can definitely do it. We’ve got to keep working hard and now we have more of a taste of what it’s all about. We’re moving up each year and hopefully we’ll be able to get a national title in the future.”

1st Half
The heavier rains of earlier Sunday had subsided to a light mist by match kickoff, but the rains increased in intensity as the match went on. The playing surface appeared to be in decent condition.

The Tar Heels got a dream start when Tobin Heath swung a pass wide to Casey Nogueira and Nogueira delivered a tremendous cross for Jessica McDonald who made no mistake with the close range finish and UNC led 1-0, just 2:50 into the game.

UNC came close to making it 2-0 shortly thereafter, as McDonald fed Courtney Jones, but her chipped finishing attempt went over an onrushing Maker but wide of the target.

Stanford dodged yet another bullet when a clear handball in the area by one of its defenders was not whistled by the referee. Still UNC was controlling the game and applying constant pressure. Amber Brooks was proving to be a very effective hub in swinging the ball side to side, with Tobin Heath providing constant motion in the forward third and McDonald and Nogueira lurking dangerously at every turn.

Stanford got its shot 18 minutes into the contest after some sustained midfield buildup, but Teresa Noyola’s attemp went well over. At 22 minutes, Nogueira drew a hard foul 30 yards out and hit a low free kick that deflected out for a corner. Rachel Givan’s serve was headed wide of the far post by Brooks, just before the accursed TV timeout.

While the North Carolina defensive trio of Kristi Eveland, Whitney Engen and Rachel Givan looked very comfortable in dealing with every potential threat, Brooks and her substitute Ali Hawkins were also an instrumental part of the defense in man-marking the Stanford playmaker.

Stanford thought they had actually forged an equalizer against the run of play in the closing minutes of the half when a cross from Christen Press was redirected into the net by Courtney Verloo, but the effort was ruled out for offside. On the other end, an Ali Hawkins header off a corner was saved by Maker.

The Cardinal could consider themselves lucky to be down by only 1-0 after 45 minutes, considering how thoroughly UNC had dominated possession (62-38), corners (7-0) and shots (10-1), and how little time Stanford even had with the ball in the Tar Heels’ half of the field.

“We have a unique style. We try to bring that to bear against every team we play. Our philosophy isn’t horribly profound, it’s just basically a work ethic. Our team doesn’t put up with any divas. If you’re on the field for the Tar Heels, you put your hard hat on and you go to work,” Dorrance said about the system that worked so well in the 1st half. “We sprint to close down people and make it difficult for any team to play. Stanford is a remarkable team with talent at every position and extraordinary talent coming off the bench. We’ve tried to develop a system that’s hard to play against that’s based on pressure and work ethic. I think it’s hard for other teams to replicate that in practice…We try to play absolutely as fast as possible offensively. We try to force opponents to play faster than they can offensively. That’s our fundamental game plan going into every single game. What makes it work is the players sitting around me. You can’t do this with ordinary players or players that are uncoachable.”

2nd Half
In the 2nd half, Stanford kept Camille Levin on in midfield in place of Noyola, with Verloo on the left flank and Lindsay Taylor on the bench. With the rains now driving down hard, the tempo of the match seemed to slow considerably, but Stanford earned its first corner of the match and Mariah Nogueira headed a Press serve over the bar. Ali Riley then made a surging run down the left and hit a cross than Engen did well to clear. Kelley O’Hara then turned and shot from the edge of the area as Stanford appeared to be much more in the game after the break.

Some tough fouls were being dished out and Tarheel Meghan Klingenberg was booked for the one she committed against Verloo. On the ensuing free kick, the ball was loose in the UNC area, but Lucy Bronze delivered a timely clearance and the match remained 1-0.

The Tar Heels began to reassert themselves, Alyssa Rich earned a corner with a nice run down the left side of the field. Rich served the ball herself and it whipped through the 6-yard box, but nobody could get a decisive match-killing touch.

What did more to kill the match however was a red card issued to Kelley O’Hara with 17:43 remaining, for her 2nd yellow card in 5 minutes, both for challenges on UNC defenders with the ball, the 2nd from behind.

Down to 10 players, Stanford nearly equalized immediately after when Christen Press cracked a pile driver from 30 yards that UNC goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris had to alertly palm away.

The Tar Heels came close again to killing things off when Nogueira played a lovely through ball to put McDonald in 1v1 with Maker, but the shot went just wide. Nogueira then had a left-footed drive deflected just wide with 11 minutes left.

Tobin Heath, in her final college match, was demonstrating graft and heart are as much a part of her game as skill and flair, as she ran down every ball and continually pressed Stanford players trying to play the ball.

In the 89th minute, Rachel Quon found Christen Press with a through ball and Press fired a shot into the back of the net off the post, but the effort was ruled out for offside. TV replays of the play were inconclusive, but showed the call was quite close (memo to ESPN SportsCenter crew: Highlighting where the players were on the field a second after the ball had been served does not indicate whether the recipient of the pass was offside).

UNC defender Kristi Eveland said the Tar Heel back line doesn’t play an offside trap per se.

“Basically what we do is draw a high line and we drop just before service,” she said. “So we’re almost inviting that service. We do catch forwards offside a lot. It kind of looks like that (a trap) in a lot of ways just because we’re active and they have to be active with us to stay onside.”

Stanford earned a late corner but it came to nothing and all that was left was for the Tar Heels to celebrate another national title.

Stanford Lineup
GK: Kira Maker
D: Ali Riley, Alina Garciamendez, Alicia Jenkins, Rachel Quon
M: Allison McCann, Teresa Noyola, Hillary Heath
F: Kelley O’Hara, Lindsay Taylor, Christen Press
Subs: Courtney Verloo, Mariah Nogueira, Camille Levin

North Carolina Lineup
GK: Ashlyn Harris
D: Kristi Eveland, Whitney Engen, Rachel Givan
M: Tobin Heath, Lucy Bronze, Amber Brooks, Meghan Klingenberg
F: Jessica McDonald, Casey Nogueira, Courtney Jones
Subs: Ali Hawkins, Alyssa Rich, Maria Lubrano, Sterling Smith