By R.L. Bynum

RALEIGH — After an intense and frustrating draw with Florida State, a letdown against a bad N.C. State women’s soccer team wouldn’t have been a surprise.

Top-ranked North Carolina made sure there would be none of that, jumping out to an early lead and rolling to a 4–0 victory Saturday night over the one-win Wolfpack before a record crowd of 3,972 at Dail Soccer Field.

“I think we came into this game with a great mindset,” said forward Ally Sentnor, who scored her team-high fifth goal. “Our team was really locked in, ready to go. I’m just proud of everyone’s mentality today.”

Tori Dellaperuta (top photo) gave UNC (8–0–4, 3–0–1 ACC) a boost off the bench with her return after missing the previous three matches while playing for Italy’s U23 team.

“My teammates bring out the best in myself and then each other,” Dellaperuta said. “Coming off the bench, you’re always hungry. As a team, we want to win. We want to score as many goals as we can to get everyone on the field and tonight that was our goal.”

She got back to Chapel Hill on Wednesday after playing for Italy in a loss to the Netherlands and a win over Sweden during her 10-day trip.

Dellaperuta admits it was hard to be away from the team but said she’s happy to be back and grateful the coaches supported her making the trip.

“I just go and get the job done there and then come back with my head back with the team and on the road to win a national championship,” she said. “I think the biggest thing is just bring the energy and fire and work with my teammates and do the best we can to win.”

Dellaperuta brought energy and scored the Tar Heels’ second goal. They took control from there and turned to turn the game into a rout after getting few shots beforehand.

“It’s great having her back,” UNC coach Anson Dorrance said. “Her mobility is getting better and better and better. She’s a wonderfully creative player. She’s starting to solve some of her positional problems in midfield. Her game’s being elevated. So, to have her back from Italy and to so active and excited, we love having her back.”

After Carolina only had a 6–2 shot edge in the first half, the Tar Heels poured it on from there to finish with a 23–2 edge and hold the Pack shotless in the second half.

“The tempo of the game is very high,” Dorrance said. “So if a team stays with our tempo, they’re going to eventually fatigue. We have the luxury of playing a deep bench. And when the bench comes in, to some extent the tempo gets even faster because the pace of Maddie Dahlien and Kate Faasse.”

It took only four minutes for UNC to score off a corner. Emily Moxley booted it in front of the goal and Evelyn Shores headed off the right post and past Wolfpack goaltender Olivia Pratapas, who shutout Duke in a scoreless draw Sunday in Durham.

Tori Dellaperuta banged in a shot off the crossbar from 25 yards in the 30th minute.

Only 36 seconds into the second half to make it 3–0. Directly off the kickoff, Moxley fed the ball to Sentnor, who fired in a rocket from 18 yards out.

“Mox did a great job of getting wide and creating that space for me and she played a great ball right to my feet, so that was amazing by her,” Sentnor said. “I just took the space that I saw and my teammates make great runs off the ball to give me that space as well.”

N.C. State (1–6–5, 0–2–2) played its defenders back as many Carolina opponents have but couldn’t hold off the pressing Tar Heels.

NOTES — Carolina returns home at 7 p.m. Thursday to face Miami (3–5–3, 2–2), which lost 2–0 Friday night at No. 2 Florida State but played No. 9 Alabama to a scoreless road draw on Aug. 31. … Fifth-year UNC forward Isabel Cox, a graduate student, played in her 99th career matches, the most of any active Division I player. She drew a yellow card in the second half. … Carolina freshman forward Olivia Thomas missed her fourth consecutive match after suffering a calf injury Sept. 10 at Alabama. … UNC junior midfielder Makenna Dominguez made her season debut after not playing last season. … Carolina leads the series with N.C. State 49–3–2, including 17–2–2 in Raleigh, and has won 19 of the last 21 meeting. … UNC has outscored N.C. State 176–38 over 54 games. … UNC has one of 13 undefeated Division I women’s teams and is the only school with both soccer teams undefeated. The men’s team (4–0–4, 1–0–3) plays at home Tuesday against Elon.

No. 1 UNC 4, N.C. State 0

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