They bent over at the final buzzer, spent and soggy and still at an impasse.
For 90 minutes Saturday, North Carolina and No. 12 Virginia clumped around a midfield that became more swampy in metaphor than reality, sending through balls skipping too far while managing a combined total of three shots on goal. Neither team scored. Virginia came closest.
“If there were another 15 minutes in this game, I think we score,” Virginia Coach George Gelnovatch said. “I really do. They were just getting tired.”
The Cavaliers (5-1-2, 2-0-2 ACC) whiffed on a chance at Klöckner Stadium to keep pace atop the conference table, even early in the league slate, and to continue a torrid run of form that has seen a draw against then-No. 8 Virginia Tech, a win over then No. 6 Louisville, and a thrashing of then-No. 1 Wake Forest.
The chances came. Sebastian Pop in the 64th minute, Nick Simmonds in the 87th. Marcos Dos Santos’s whipped ball grazed the heads of a crowd within the six-yard box, and Pop’s poke got cleared off the line; Simmonds, on a half turn in the box, smashed a shot wide.
Then there was that run from Reese Miller, a boomerang dipping behind the stony Tar Heels, alone in the acreage. His touch greeted the ball like butter. But the shot? He snatched it over the bar.
Gelnovatch expressed confidence in Miller, a senior only in his third game returning from the knee injury that wrecked his sophomore season. He played 50 minutes Saturday.
“He’ll score that in November,” Gelnovatch said. “I’m not concerned about him. But that was a good chance.”
So they stood around at the end, hair splayed from sweat and rain, and commiserated.
“Disappointed, and the guys are disappointed,” Gelnovatch said. “This was always going to be a one-goal game. They’ve tied four teams in the conference.”
That the Tar Heels (4-1-4, 0-0-4 ACC) have. By 0-0, then 1-1, then 1-1, and now by 0-0.
They entered the game squarely in the middle of the conference, gazing up at Virginia and Clemson. Early it is, still, to compare notes in a condensed table in the nation’s best conference. But after the initial RPI dropped this week — Virginia landed at No. 8 — the broader questions have begun wafting through the house.
“Do I think we’re one of the top 10 teams in the country?” Gelnovatch said. “I do.”
Saturday it took some time for it to look like it. The game felt staccato at first, stopping every minute for a foul or a feigned injury, or by a careless giveaway shifting the possession.
Gelnovatch shook his head on the sideline. His crossed arms looked bolted to his body as he paced. After 25 minutes, he swapped his entire front three, frustrated, he said later, with the final product. Things kept breaking down after solid buildup play.
But there was another team on the field, too.
“They’re tough to break down,” Gelnovatch said. “They drop in, they’re compact, they’re big, they’re strong, they’re athletic. They defend like hell in the last third of the field.”
Virginia’s midfield, still without the injured Brendan Lambe, tried its best. But the game, most of the way, got smushed in the midfield. The teams mustered six combined shots in the first half, none on goal.
Gelnovatch said he told his team at halftime that the chances would start flowing around the 60-minute mark. Hang tight until then. North Carolina would get worn down. Once the rope frayed, all you would need is a pair of scissors.
Virginia ended up outshooting North Carolina 15-5. But to no fruit. It became more a game of Nick Dang clapping in a North Carolina player’s face after shepherding the ball out for a goal kick, drawing a yellow, of Albin Gashi rending the air with a yell after seeing one defensive play out, of the indefatigable Jesus de Vicente doing the same.
It marked Virginia’s fourth home clean sheet. This one, though, was anchored by a different goalkeeper.
Three days before, Caleb Tunks found out he was starting the game. The junior had never played a minute.
“Casper walked off,” Tunks said, “and I hear I’m going in. Had to start getting ready.”
Casper Mols, the grad transfer from Kentucky, the former first-team All-American as a freshman who has played every minute this season, was injured. Sophomore Spencer Sanderson, the No. 2 goalkeeper, was too. Up stepped Tunks.
Gelnovatch gathered the team at the end of practice Friday. The words he said were part pep talk, part simple truth.
“I said, ‘You’re ready for this,’” Gelnovatch said. “‘You’ve been training for this. You’ve been disciplined for this.’”
Tunks kept a clean sheet.
“There you go,” Gelnovatch said.
Tunks made one recorded save, early in the second half, stepping a few feet off his line to claim a cross. But he navigated everything that came with his feet, cheekily escaping pressure a couple times.
“I was excited, for sure,” Tunks said. “A little bit nervous. But once you start playing, that just fades away.”
Gelnovatch called him a “really close” No. 3 behind the sophomore Sanderson. Tunks is also, despite never having played a game, experienced. He has played plenty in the unofficial spring season, a handful of games against ACC teams.
Saturday he won in his first college game. But he’d already beaten North Carolina twice. Once on penalties.
“You wouldn’t have thought,” Gelnovatch said, “that he was not our starting goalkeeper.”
Mols’ status for Virginia’s game Wednesday at 7 p.m. against UW-Milwaukee is unclear. The Cavaliers’ mid-week game last week against Dayton, the planned end to a two-week stretch of only one game per week, got canceled.
The Cavaliers have now played only four games since Sept. 1. They are raring to go — especially after leaving points on the table Saturday.
“We’re like, ok, let’s go,” Gelnovatch said.
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