Unlike college basketball or football players, NCAA soccer players can transfer from one school to another without having to sit out a year. North Carolina coach Carlos Somoano is certainly happy about that exemption: He used it to land striker Ben Speas, a junior who won a national championship with the University of Akron last season.
In the Tar Heels’ semifinal match against UCLA on Friday, Speas set up a goal and buried the game-winning penalty in the shootout after extra time (the match had finished 2-2).
In last night’s final, Speas scored the goal in Carolina’s 1-0 win over upstart UNC Charlotte, delivering the NCAA title to Chapel Hill for the first time since 2001.
Highlights and commentary here:
The Tar Heels had reached the semifinals in each of the previous two seasons, and fell in the final in 2008.
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