Coach George Gelnovatch and his staff constructed a simple plan. Vacuum the opponent’s pressing forwards into a corner. Draw its midfielders in the same direction. Then smack long diagonal balls into the suddenly empty acreage occupied only by their own wing backs.
It took a while to work Sunday at Klöckner Stadium. No. 1 seed Virginia tried hammering those long balls and saw them chopped down. No. 9 seed North Carolina clogged up its dynamic midfield, and those wing backs failed to do anything with the long balls that did find their targets.
In the 32nd minute, senior defender Reese Miller came on in one of those wing back positions. Miller was sick all week. He did not participate in a single practice, and the coaching staff hesitated to even play him. But he helped flip the game.
“Reese made a big difference,” Gelnovatch said. “When the ball arrives to that weak side wing back, he’s got to penetrate off the dribble, not collect it, pass it sideways or pass it back. And that’s what Reese offered. He was getting a longer ball, taking it on the run, eliminating four or five guys.”
Miller came on five minutes after North Carolina’s opener. Virginia equalized four minutes later. The game remained scoreless until late, but the Cavaliers (11-1-4, 5-0-3 ACC) finally got their winner in the 78th minute, pushing past the Tar Heels (9-1-4, 2-2-4 ACC) 2-1 despite missing a late penalty five weeks after tying them 0-0. Virginia advanced to Thursday’s semifinals, where it will play No. 12 seed California, a Cinderella that knocked off No. 5 seed Duke 2-0 and then No. 13 seed Pittsburgh 1-0.
At WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C., Virginia will attempt to avoid the fate of last season. A 5-1 shellacking at Wake Forest’s hands ended the dream last year. But this Virginia team, on a 13-game, 73-day old unbeaten run and loaded with talent, is hoping to win the tournament for the first time since 2019.
This step toward it did not come easy.
“That’s a championship performance," Gelnovatch said. “That’s what I’m most proud of.”
Virginia’s first-round bye certainly helped. Without it, Gelnovatch said Wednesday, graduate defender Sebastian Pop and senior midfielder Jesus De Vicente, stalwarts at their positions, may have missed the game with injury. Even so, senior defender Nick Dang missed the game due to yellow card accumulation, with sophomore Jed Akwaboah starting in his place.
In the teams’ first matchup, North Carolina managed, according later on to Gelnovatch, an expected goals of 0.10. Gelnovatch, at least, has never seen a number that low.
This was not quite that. The Tar Heels opened the scoring in the 27th minute. Graduate forward Nacho Abeal got to the byline, his cross squeezing between three defenders to graduate midfielder Gabriel Bracken Serra, who looked so surprised to have a tap in that he turned around almost in confusion before running away to celebrate. That put the hosts in an unusual situation.
"It's been a while since we got scored on first in an ACC game,” Gelnovatch said.
At roughly the half-hour mark, Gelnovatch made his first raft of substitutions. On came Miller and senior forward Triton Beauvois. They made an immediate impact.
Miller got involved in the equalizer. He passed it to senior midfielder Umberto Pelà, who flipped it to freshman forward Nick Simmonds, charging down the flank, whose first-time ball found Beauvois, who hammered home the finish.
Beauvois has been in and out this season, had not scored since last year’s ACC Tournament. But the coaches liked him for this game — “just thought Triton was a good fit for this game,” Gelnovatch said — and it paid off.
That set the stage for the winner. Virginia had long since seized control of the game by the time it finally came around. North Carolina Coach Carlos Samoana talked about the little battles, the one-on-ones, his team going “40-60” instead of “60-40.” Virginia was all over the field. De Vicente launched himself for a diving header once just to keep possession. Akwaboah did his best Dang impression with crunching slide tackles.
Then the ball came floating from De Vicente’s foot into Simmonds’ run. In stride, he took it down with his chest. No one else had reached the box. He figured he might as well have a hit.
“I just figured, if I get my first touch out of my feet, I have a shot on goal,” Simmonds said.
He let the ball bounce once and then drove his foot through it, and though the ball bounced and skipped and swerved a little, it was going right for senior goalkeeper Andrew Cordes. Cordes dropped down to scoop it. But the ball swerved wider, and then a little wider, and then Cordes’ hands were reaching too far. The ball leaked through.
“I don't want to take anything away from [Simmonds], because he's had a great season, and he's a great player,” Samoana said. “But it was a goalkeeper error. Routine save that’s normally made.”
The visiting coach managed a smile through his despondency.
“I guess when you're feeling good, things go your way.”
That can be said for Simmonds, now the producer of nine goals and five assists in an increasingly torrid season. But it can also be said for Virginia, a team looking like a lethal machine as it heads deeper into the postseason.
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