By Bob Sutton

CHAPEL HILL — This wasn’t how it was drawn up for the No. 3-ranked North Carolina women’s soccer team.

How the Tar Heels respond from their sudden departure from the ACC tournament will ultimately determine how the season is viewed.

“There’s a plus-minus to being eliminated early,” North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance said. “The minus is obviously; we’re no longer competing for an ACC championship. The plus is we get to train a bit. We’ve been given a training platform now.”

No. 5-seed Pittsburgh defeated the No. 4-seed Tar Heels 2–1 in two overtimes of the ACC quarterfinals in front of a sparse Sunday night crowd at Dorrance Field.

The Tar Heels has won 22 of the first 35 ACC championships. This time, they ended three victories short of that goal.

“I think we’re going to use it for motivation,” sophomore Ally Sentnor said.

Much of North Carolina’s practice time will center on offensive execution.

“And see if we can start to solve some of the issues we have in goal finishing,” Dorrance said, “because goal creation hasn’t been our main problem. It’s goal finishing.”

Pittsburgh’s Amanda West scored her ninth goal of the season with 1:22 remaining in the first of the two 10-minute overtime periods. The Tar Heels never had a shot on goal in the second overtime period.

Pittsburgh’s Ellie Coffield converted off Landy Mertz’s cross with 17:06 remaining in regulation for the first goal. Sentnor’s eighth goal this year tied it with a left-footed blast from atop the box with 14:03 left.

“I’m just proud we were able to come back,” Sentnor said.

Pittsburgh (14–4–1) takes on top-seeded and No. 1-ranked Florida State in Thursday night’s 8 p.m. semifinal at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary.

The Tar Heels (10–1–8) won’t get a rematch with the Seminoles in what a few weeks ago might have looked like a potential national championship preview. UNC and the Seminoles played to a 3–3 draw Sept. 23 at Dorrance Field.

North Carolina’s season already had been clunky despite the first unbeaten regular season in 19 years. The Tar Heels hadn’t lost until Sunday night, but it didn’t win half of its regular-season ACC games (5–0–5). North Carolina and the Panthers didn’t meet in the regular season.

“Some of the ties felt like losses, so it wasn’t unique,” Dorrance said of the latest outcome.

North Carolina still hasn’t been defeated in regulation, and a high seed for the NCAA Tournament is expected to come Nov. 6.

“The message was we’re still in position to win an NCAA championship,” Dorrance said.

Maybe the test from Pittsburgh will prove beneficial.

“We’re looking to play teams like this that can prepare us for the NCAA Tournament,” Sentnor said.

It marked the sixth time in a seven-game span that the Tar Heels scored one goal.

“We’re very concerned,” Dorrance said. “We’ve got to do a better job finishing the chances we create because we still created enough chances to score more than one goal in all those games.”

Pittsburgh produced many of the early scoring chances Sunday night. Tar Heels goalkeeper Emmie Allen tipped Deborah Ablodun’s header away near the midway mark of the first half. The Panthers had an 8–5 edge in first-half shots.

A similar sequence occurred about 15 minutes into the second half off a Pittsburgh corner kick, with Allen knocking away a header from Ablodun.

The Panthers took five corner kicks in a stretch of less than five minutes.

The Tar Heels lost in the ACC tournament quarterfinal round for just the third time in 26 all-time appearances.

Pittsburgh had its highest ACC win total in the regular season and reached the conference tournament for just the second time.

In the other Sunday quarterfinal, third-seeded and No. 8-ranked Clemson topped sixth-seeded Wake Forest 1–0 to advance to a semifinal vs. second-seeded and No. 11-ranked Notre Dame.

Bob Sutton is a veteran ACC sports writer who is the former North Carolina Sportswriter of the Year and was the sports editor of the Burlington Times-News for 25 years.

Pitt 2, No. 3 UNC 1, 2 OTs

ACC tournament

Sunday’s first-round results (at higher seed)
No. 8-ranked, No. 3-seed Clemson 1, No. 6-seed Wake Forest 0
No. 5-seed Pittsburgh 2, No. 3-ranked, No. 4-seed North Carolina 1, 2 OTs
Thursday’s semifinals in Cary
Clemson (14–2–3) vs. No. 11-ranked, No. 2 seed Notre Dame (11–2–4), 5:30 p.m., ACCN
Pittsburgh (14–4–1) vs. (1 seed) No. 1-ranked, No. 1-seed Florida State (14–0–1), 8 p.m., ACCN
Sunday’s championship in Cary
Noon, ESPNU

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