Heels shut out 7th straight foe

Reach women's soccer quarterfinals

North Carolina junior defender Whitney Engen shook her head.

She couldn't remember the last time her team gave up a goal.

UNC used its speed and relentless defense to wear down the University of Illinois for a 3-0 victory -- the team's seventh straight shutout -- advancing to the NCAA women's soccer quarterfinals.

The Heels haven't allowed a goal since October.

Engen and the other two players on the Tar Heels' back line all logged 90 minutes. But Engen credited the team's philosophy of 11 players on defense.

"It makes our job easy," Engen said.

UNC will take on either Florida or Texas A&M, who play today in Gainesville, Fla.

The Heels (22-1-2) attacked early, but the Illini defense was stout inside the 18-yard box.

"We knew they were going to be a very scrappy team," UNC coach Anson Dorrance said. "We didn't get any really good looks early."

Dorrance said his substitutes on the front line kept the up the pressure. Indeed, all nine forwards logged minutes.

The closest Illinois (12-9-2) came to getting a first period shot was in the 15th minute, when junior forward Chichi Nweke, flanked by the Tar Heels defense, nearly shook off goalie Anna Rodenbough, who snatched up the ball before Nweke could get a shot.

Indeed, the Illini got only three shots on goal out of six total shots in the game.

"It was a suffocating pressure," Illini coach Janet Rayfield said.

Illinois goalkeeper Alexandra Kapicka, a junior, had nine shutouts this season, and entered the match having allowed only one goal in the past five matches. Illinois won all five of those contests, and the last three had all required at least double overtime.

But Casey Nogueira broke through in the 32nd minute, drawing Kapicka out from the box before firing. Kapicka saved the shot but one of her own defenders redirected the ball into the net. So Nogueira wasn't credited with the goal. It officially goes into the books as an "own goal."

In the 65th minute, freshman middlefielder Rachel Wood scored her second goal of the year on a pass from middie Ali Hawkins, who had passed the ball across from the right wing.

Less than three minutes later, Nogueira drove home senior middie Allie Long's pass across from the right side.

Freshman forward Brittani Bartok was credited with assists on both of those goals.

Rayfield said UNC's speed was just too much.

"We came in here knowing Carolina was going to play at a pace faster than a lot of teams we've seen," said Rayfield, who as a player led UNC to its first national title in 1982.

In the Tar Heels record book she is second to only Mia Hamm in career goals at UNC (93). She is third in career points (223).

Rayfield hadn't been back to Chapel Hill as a head coach since a game in 1994, when she coached the University of Arkansas.

"You don't want to see one of your former players eliminated," Dorrance said. "I hope next year we're in difference brackets."