North Carolina hopes that it has one more trick up its sleeve in today's College Cup final against Maryland.
Not a lot of people expected the 13th-seeded Tar Heels to be still playing, but they aren't about to back down now. They will have to continue the outstanding defensive play that they showed on Friday in a 1-0 semifinal win over top-seeded Wake Forest if they want to knock off second-seeded Maryland.
It's the first time in the 50-year history of the NCAA Tournament that two teams from the ACC will be playing for the title. The ACC is guaranteed to win its 13th NCAA men's soccer title.
The Tar Heels' late-season rise was unexpected.
They lost their last five games heading into the NCAA Tournament, including back-to-back losses to the Terps.
Now they will play Maryland for a third time in a span of five weeks.
Senior Garry Lewis of the Tar Heels said: "Simply, I think it was we just woke up."
Since the two consecutive losses to the Terps, by scores of 2-1 and 1-0, the Tar Heels have won four in a row to make it to the championship game for the first time since winning the title in 2001.
"I don't know how to describe the feeling other than we knew everything was on the line," Lewis said.
"It was either win or go home, and we had our backs to the wall and we have a lot of seniors and a lot of our guys showed leadership."
Coach Elmar Bolowich has said all along that the Tar Heels didn't play that bad during their five-game losing streak, they just didn't catch any breaks.
But in the tournament they are riding a hot goalie (Brooks Haggerty) and getting outstanding play from forward Brian Shriver, midfielder Zach Loyd and leadership from defender Ryan Adeleye.
"We are very excited to be playing another day and look forward to the opportunity to play for a national title," said Bolowich, whose Tar Heels are 15-7-1 and can match the Tar Heels women by winning the NCAA title in the same season.
The seven losses would be the most by a championship team since UC Santa Barbara in 2006.
Lewis said that after the NCAA Tournament began and the Tar Heels beat Jacksonville 1-0, he sensed they could make a deep run.
"I had no doubt in my mind," Lewis said. "I definitely believed that coming into this tournament we had a chance. A lot of people wrote us off, but we knew we could turn a lot of heads and play the underdog role and I think we love that and thrive like that."
They will be very big underdogs in today's match against an experienced Maryland team that last won the NCAA title in 2005. Senior forward Graham Zusi, who scored the winning goal Friday in overtime in a 1-0 win over St. John's, was part of the 2005 title team.
The Terps (22-3) have won a school-record 15 in a row, and Zusi said he's aware that they will be facing some hot Tar Heels.
"Once you get to this stage, every team you play is a great team," Zusi said. "Carolina is a great team, and they've proved it in this tournament. We just want to go out and play our game, and I think that if we do that we have a good chance of being successful."
Coach Sasho Cirovski of the Terps also paid plenty of respect to the Tar Heels, who haven't allowed a goal in the last 203 minutes.
"We have had a couple of highly-competitive games with them already and we expect (today) to be another great, tough battle against a team that is playing its best soccer of the year," Cirovski said. "We're looking forward to that challenge, and we're ready."
■ John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or at jdell@wsjournal.com.
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