July 5, 2001

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A year ago the University of North Carolina women's soccer team lost the most games it has in one season in 20 years.

That was the big news.

As a postscript to the 2000 season the Tar Heels went on to win their 12th successive Atlantic Coast Conference championship and the 17th national title for the program in the past 20 seasons. So it really was business as usual in Chapel Hill after all.

Coach Anson Dorrance enters the 2001 campaign welcoming back seven starters from the 2000 championship squad and 19 players overall who earned letters last season. Dorrance has also added several talented freshmen to the roster and coming off another national championship Carolina is likely to be the preseason #1 team in the nation in all the various polls.

Gone from the 2000 season are a quartet of starting players led by 2000 Honda Soccer Award recipient and Soccer Times National Player of the Year Meredith Florance, a striker from Dallas, Texas. Florance had a breakthrough senior year for the Tar Heels, ranking among the nation's scoring leaders with 26 goals and eight assists for 60 points. Her five game-winning goals led the Tar Heels. Not bad statistics for a player who had never made first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference prior to her senior year. Florance's senior year vaulted her into 10th place in career points at UNC with 150 and into 10th place in career goals with 59.

Four-year starter Florance will be missed just as much as another underrated four-year starter in the Carolina lineup, midfielder Raven McDonald. Other missing starters are two-year regular middle defender Kalli Kamholz, a standout Tar Heel after transferring from Vanderbilt, and left back Julia Marslender who started every game as a senior while developing into one of the nation's steadiest defenders. All four senior starters for the Tar Heels in 2000 are now playing on Women's United Soccer Association teams.

Overall the Tar Heels are minus 11 letter winners from the 2000 team as last year's 10-member senior class went out with a blaze of glory, winning yet another Carolina championship. One off-season roster change saw reserve forward Kim Patrick, the team's leading scorer as a freshman in 1999, transfer to Tennessee where she is likely to see more playing time under the aegis of former Tar Heel standout Angela Kelly who is now in her second year as the head coach of the Volunteers.

So that in a nutshell is what Carolina is missing from the 2000 team which finished 21-3 overall, accumulating the most losses for a team at UNC since the 1980 team fell to the opposition five times. What does return are seven starters and 19 letter winners overall and a very talented freshman class that includes players who will help fill the void at several key positions.

Carolina will again be one of the nation's deepest and most experienced teams. It is also a team which has gone through a season where it was truly humbled on occasion as the Tar Heels lost three regular-season games, all in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Prior to last season the Tar Heels had lost only one game to an ACC opponent in its entire history. Yet the humility which the Tar Heels learned from those three defeats ended up serving last year's team well. During their post-season run the Tar Heels faced adversity regularly but they responded like champions. Three times in the NCAA Tournament Carolina faced 1-0 second-half deficits and three times the Tar Heels rallied for 2-1 wins against Virginia in the tournament's third round, Notre Dame in the semifinals and UCLA in the championship game.

This year's version of the Tar Heels will be led by a pair of senior national player of the year candidates in midfielder Jena Kluegel of Mahtomedi, Minn. and defender Danielle Borgman of Cincinnati, Ohio. Both of these players were named first team All-Americas a year ago by Soccer Buzz and Soccer Times and third-team All-Americas on the National Soccer Coaches Association of America/adidas All-America squad. Borgman also earned first-team All-America honors from Soccer America. Each player has been a three-year starter for the Tar Heels and a bedrock player for Carolina at their particular positions. Since she plays the midfield rather than defense Kluegel's overall career statistics are flashier than Borgman's but both are members of the U.S. National Team and both are simply magnificent collegiate players. Kluegel was UNC's third leading scorer last season with 29 points. She led the ACC and finished second in the country in assists as she had 23 in 24 games. Her 37 career assists are already 18th on the Tar Heel list and if she has a similar year as a senior as she did as a junior in that category she would finish second all-time at Carolina behind only Mia Hamm. Borgman is known as the ACC's fastest player and its most tenacious defender. Dorrance also experimented last season with using Borgman up top as a forward and she excelled at that role as well.

Two other members of Carolina's senior class are also expected to play major roles this season. Three-time letter winner Anne Remy of Norman, Okla. is known as one of the team's hardest workers. She has started the past two years and developed into an All-America calibre player. She shifts back and forth between the midfield and the forward line and does well both places. She did not score as a junior at the prolific rate she did as a sophomore because she didn't have to as Carolina had other go to players last season. She did continue to be one of the ACC's best distributors of the ball as she recorded 12 assists while starting all 24 games for Carolina, just as Borgman and Kluegel did. After two year's as Carolina primary backup goalkeeper, senior Kristin DePlatchett (Harborcreek, Pa.) played a larger role as a junior especially with the absence of 1999 starter Jenni Branam as a member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team. DePlatchett started 10 games as a junior and played 926 minutes overall. She mad 27 saves while allowing only five goals and her goals against average was a solid 0.49. The roster's three other seniors have been valuable practice players for the Tar Heels over the past three years while seeing occasional action--midfielder Johanna Costa of Chapel Hill, N.C., striker Amy Whittier of Fairfield, Conn. and goalkeeper Katie Simmons of Wilmington, N.C.

Despite the loss of Patrick to Tennessee the Tar Heels' junior class remains a talented if somewhat depleted one. It is hoped in the Tar Heel camp that 2001 will be the bust out season for striker Susan Bush of Houston, Texas. One of the most heralded high school players ever and an alternate on the 1999 U.S. World Cup team, Bush has spent much of her two seasons as a Tar Heel sitting on the bench because of injuries. Riddled by a series of ailments as a freshmen she was still resilient enough to bounce back and earn Most Valuable Offensive Player honors in the 1999 NCAA Tournament honors as Carolina regained the national championship. She was in the midst of a banner year last season before she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee in a practice session on October 25. She was still named second-team All-ACC and she was Carolina's sixth-leading scorer with 22 points on nine goals and four assists. Her four game-winning goals were second on the team. Two other players who spent much of last season as starters are midfielder Leslie Gaston of Montgomery, Ala. and goalkeeper Jenni Branam of Placentia, Calif. Gaston started half of the games last season playing primarily at the stopper or defensive midfield role. She scored four goals and had one assist and after five serious knee injuries in the last five years she continues to rank as a medical marvel. Branam followed up her brilliant freshman year by being named an alternate to the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team which forced her to miss eight games last season. She started 14 times but did not have the same numbers as her standout first season. With a more established and regular schedule and no mid-season trips to Sydney on tap in 2001 look for Branam to be back in top form this season.

Carolina's sophomore class includes several players who are primed to break through as top collegians. Four of the players have a great chance to earn starting roles this season and a pair are already members of the U.S. National Team. Striker Alyssa Ramsey of Cornelius, N.C. was a consensus freshman first-team All-America choice last season as well as first-team All-ACC selection. She ranked in the top three of the ACC in points (43), goals (14) and assists (15). Her height, physical style and speed make her a deadly weapon in the UNC attack. Defender Catherine Reddick of Birmingham, Ala. played most of this summer on the U.S. National Team, a heady feat for a player her started only one game as a freshman at Carolina. That game was the NCAA championship contest against UCLA and after the Tar Heel win Reddick was named the defensive MVP of the NCAA Tournament. She also spent some time at forward last season and scored four goals while adding five assists. Physically imposing Maggie Tomecka of Shrewsbury, Mass. was a steady influence as a defender and midfielder last season. At 5-11, she make a great target in the box on set pieces. She started 12 games as a freshman and scored four goals and had nine assists. One of the team's biggest surprises last year was attacking midfielder Jordan Walker of Dallas, Texas. A brilliant student of the game and a stellar force in the classroom, Walker does not possess the standout athletic ability of many of her teammates but she makes up for that shortcoming in grit and smarts. She was inserted into Carolina's starting lineup late in the season and responded with aplomb finishing the season with four goals and five assists. Her rocket in the 83rd minute of the national semifinals against Notre Dame lifted the Tar Heels into the national championship game.

The remainder of the sophomore class includes midfielder/defender Carmen Watley of Greensboro, N.C., a potential rising star in her own right, as well as striker/defender Elizabeth Ball of Dallas, Texas, who was a red-shirt last season after having a solid freshman season in 1999. Also on the roster are midfielder Susie Ball of Tampa, Fla., forward Hilary Young of Atlanta, Ga., and forward Jane Smith of Winston-Salem, N.C.

Carolina's freshman class includes a whole host of players whom Dorrance believes could blossom into future Tar Heel stars. This is a well balanced class by position with Anne Morrell of Plymouth, Mich. and Mary McDowell of Lakewood, Colo. both coming in as accomplished forwards. McDowell's older sister, Rebekah, started for four years as a Tar Heel from 1996-99. Sara Randolph of Cincinnati is a member of the U.S. National Team and will make the Tar Heel team even deeper and more talented in the midfield. Another standout midfielder is Anne Felts of Rolla, Mo. as well as two great in-state prospects--Leigh Blomgren and Laura Winslow, both of Greensboro. The class also includes the versatile Sophie Gervais of Chapel Hill High School and a future standout in the goal, Aly Yount-Winget, of Orinda, Calif. Yount-Winget attended the same high school, Carondelet, as former Tar Heel phenom Tiffany Roberts, 1995-98.

Those are the key elements Dorrance will have to work with as he seeks to craft another championship team in Chapel Hill. Carolina will again play one of the more daunting schedules in America with only six regular season home games on the docket. The Tar Heels open the season at home with an exhibition game against perennial power Nebraska at Fetzer Field on August 25. Carolina opens the 2001 season the same way it did last year by playing on the road at Texas and Texas A&M. Carolina returns home then to host the Carolina Nike Classic which features Charlotte, Penn State, Duke and UNC. Other regular season road trips will take Carolina to ACC opponents Virginia, Maryland and Duke, to Duke's adidas Classic against Missouri and Georgia, to the Houston Challenge Cup tournament, to Tennessee, Auburn and UAB and a season closer at Ohio State.

The ACC Tournament goes back to Wake Forest's Spry Soccer Stadium where it was last held in 1997. The road to the NCAA championship will end this year in Dallas with Southern Methodist University as the host school.

Sometime during the coming campaign it is likely that the program will reach another milestone--its 500th win. Of course all of those wins have come under the tutelage of the brilliant Dorrance whose 22-year ledger of 487 victories, 22 losses and 11 ties defies the logical. Carolina will certainly field another great team in 2001, one with the ability to win another ACC championship and NCAA crown. But it is getting harder and harder for Carolina to defend that turf. Of the last 18 games played in the NCAA Women's Soccer Final Four fourteen have been decided by one goal and four by two goals. Expect the competition in 2001 to be that tight and that fierce once again.