HOOVER, Ala. -- The Charlotte 49ers get their first crack at a national championship today in any sport when they face North Carolina in the NCAA men's soccer College Cup final today at Regions Park.
The Tar Heels, more accustomed to this kind of stage, don't want to come home with an empty College Cup for a fourth consecutive season.
When the top-seed Tar Heels (20-2-3) face unseeded Charlotte (16-4-4) at 4 p.m. today, it will be a clash of one of the sport's traditional powers and an up-and-coming program primed to break through nationally.
North Carolina, which advanced to the final after a penalty-kick shootout against UCLA in the semifinals, has been here before. It's the result the Tar Heels want to change: they lost in the championship game to Maryland in 2008, and have bowed out in the semifinals in each of the past two seasons (Akron in 2009, Louisville in '10).
That puts the Tar Heels in a position of strength today, said senior forward Kirk Urso, who played in all three of those College Cup losses.
"I think it's a positive that we got there and we got the experience," said Urso. "Now it's taking it and saying that we can learn from that."
There's something else the Tar Heels and 49ers might learn from: They played a preseason exhibition in August, with North Carolina leading 2-1 in the 70th minute before a rainstorm halted the game. The contest was played before a crowd of 4,038 fans at Charlotte's Transamerica Field, the largest crowd in school history (although it was not for a regular-season game).
"We didn't think about whether we'd be playing them down the line," said Tar Heels coach Carlos Somoano.
Somoano said that facing another school from the UNC System won't have any bearing on today's outcome.
"In our world, we play either a good or a bad team," he said. "We're going to look at whether they've done something in the past against us, and not what their name is."
Charlotte had taken a 1-0 lead on a goal by senior T.J. Beaulieu before North Carolina rallied.
"There's no under-rating Charlotte," said Tar Heels forward Ben Speas. "They're here for a reason. It was quite a while ago that we played them. I remember them being tough to break through and they're good on the counter, as well. We'll be ready for it."
The 49ers' last two tournament games have gone to penalty-kick shootouts following regulation and 20 minutes worth of overtime. Charlotte scored a tying goal against Connecticut in the final minutes of regulation time in the quarterfinals. The 49ers pressured Creighton constantly in the latter stages of the semifinal game in the College Cup. 49ers midfielder Donnie Smith, who played at Charlotte Catholic, constantly disrupted the Bluejays defense with dangerous runs down the left side. He nearly won the game in overtime with a vicious shot to the near post that was saved by Creighton goalkeeper Brian Holt.
Charlotte is using that knowledge that they'll be there at the end.
"I think we're the fittest team in the College Cup," said midfielder Owen Darby. "I looked Donnie in the eye and told him, 'You're not tired.' "
But Charlotte is more than a lot of players who can run all day.
"They're a hard-working bunch of guys," said Aidan Heaney, UNC Wilmington's soccer coach who is also a former 49ers goalkeeper. "But hard workers can only take you so far. You have to have talent as well."
