By R.L. Bynum

North Carolina fell one spot to No. 3 in the latest United Soccer Coaches women’s Top 25 on Tuesday, but star freshman center back Savy King in ACC Defensive Player of the Week.

The Tar Heels (1–0–1) played Penn State (1–0–1) to a scoreless draw Thursday before knocking off Cal 3–1 in their home opener on Sunday. The Nittany Lions moved up two spots to No. 8.

King is the first true UNC freshman to earn an ACC weekly honor since a fellow defender, right back Maycee Bell, won the award in 2019. UNC coach Anson Dorrance declared that King’s performance against Penn State was the finest in program history by a freshman in her debut.

Carolina continues a stretch of five consecutive home games at 4 p.m. Thursday against Wisconsin (1–0–1) and at 1 p.m. Sunday against No. 24 USC (1–0–1), with both games streamed on ESPN3.

Florida State (2–0–0) jumped four spots to No. 2 after winning a pair of road games, beating Texas A&M 2–1 and TCU 2–0.

Notre Dame (1–0–1) fell from No. 3 to No. 12 after it played unranked Milwaukee to a 2–2 draw and beat Ball State 3–0. Pittsburgh (2–0–0) dropped seven spots to No. 21 after beating Buffalo 2–1 and Drexel 4–1.

Duke (1–0–0) stayed at No. 4 and Virginia (2–0–0) remained No. 5. Clemson (1–0–1) moved up six spots to No. 19 after the Tigers played South Carolina to a scoreless draw and rolled past future UNC opponent Gardner-Webb 9–0.

Top 25

Rank	School	Previous	1st-place votes	Poll points	Record
1	UCLA	1	8	200	1-0-0
2	Florida State	6	0	192	2-0-0
3	North Carolina	2	0	183	1-0-1
4	Duke	4	0	172	1-0-0
5	Virginia	5	0	152	2-0-0
6	Stanford	11	0	148	2-0-0
7	Alabama	7	0	144	2-0-0
8	Penn State	10	0	138	1-0-1
9	Texas	15	0	135	2-0-0
10	Arkansas	8	0	131	1-0-0
11	Brigham Young	13	0	115	2-0-0
12	Notre Dame	3	0	96	1-0-1
13	Santa Clara	19	0	90	2-0-0
14	Michigan State	17	0	84	2-0-0
15	South Carolina	12	0	79	1-0-1
16	TCU	9	0	78	1-1-0
17	Memphis	20	0	57	2-0-0
17	Xavier	NR	0	57	2-0-0
19	Clemson	25	0	55	1-0-1
20	Georgetown	16	0	47	1-0-1
21	Pittsburgh	14	0	43	2-0-0
22	Central Florida	24	0	37	1-0-0
23	Washington State	NR	0	36	2-0-0
24	USC	22	0	35	1-0-0
25	Tennessee	NR	0	27	2-0-0

Also receiving votes: West Virginia (17), Gonzaga (13), Wisconsin (10), Virginia Tech (8), Saint Louis (8), University of California-Irvine (3), Northwestern (3), Harvard (3), N.C. State (2), Brown (1), Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1).

Date	Month/day	Time/score	Event/opponent (current rank)	Location	TV/ record
	August
7	Monday	W, 8–1	College of Charleston	Home	Exhibition
12	Saturday	W, 2–0	East Carolina	Home	Exhibition
17	Thursday	T, 0–0	No. 5 Penn State	University Park, Pa.	0–0–1
20	Sunday	W, 3–1	Cal	Home	1–0–1
24	Thursday	T, 0–0	No. 12 Wisconsin	Home	1–0–2
27	Sunday	W, 4–0	No. 22 USC	Home	2–0–2
31	Thursday	W, 5–0	Gardner-Webb	Home	3–0–2
	September
3	Sunday	W, 3–1	No. 10 Arkansas	Home	4–0–2
7	Thursday	W, 2–1	No. 16 South Carolina	Columbia, S.C.	5–0–2
10	Sunday	T, 1–1	No. 24 Alabama	Tuscaloosa, Ala.	5–0–3
15	Friday	W, 1–0	Virginia Tech	Home	6–0–3, 1–0 ACC
21	Thursday	W, 1–0	Virginia	Charlottesville, Va.	7–0–3, 2–0 ACC
24	Sunday	T, 3–3	No. 1 Florida State	Home	7–0–4, 2–0–1 ACC
30	Saturday	W, 4–0	N.C. State	Raleigh	8–0–4, 3–0–1 ACC
	October
5	Thursday	W, 1–0	Miami	Home	9–0–4, 4–0–1 ACC
8	Sunday	T, 1–1	No. 25 Duke	Durham	9–0–5, 4–0–2 ACC
13	Friday	T, 1–1	No. 25 Wake Forest	Winston-Salem	9–0–6, 4–0–3 ACC
19	Thursday	T, 1–1	No. 9 Notre Dame	Home	9–0–7, 4–0–4 ACC
22	Sunday	W, 6–1	Syracuse	Home	10–0–7, 5–0–4 ACC
26	Thursday	T, 1–1	Boston College	Newton, Mass.	10–0–8, 5–0–5 ACC
			ACC tournament
29	Sunday	L, 2–1 (2 OTs)	No. 11 Pittsburgh	Chapel Hill	10–1–8
	November		NCAA tournament Link to bracket
10	Friday	W, 3–1	First round: Towson	Chapel Hill	11–1–8
17	Friday	W, 1–0	Second round: No. 24 Alabama	Lubbock, Texas	12–1–8
19	Sunday	W, 1–0	Third round: No. 4 Texas Tech	Lubbock, Texas	13–1–8
24	Friday	L, 4–3	Quarterfinals: No. 6 Brigham Young	Provo, Utah	13–2–8