BY SCOTT FRENCH
Senior Editor
in Austin, Texas
It'll be an all-West Coast Conference final at the NCAA Division I women's soccer championships after No. 4 Santa Clara and No. 7 Portland scored early goals Friday en route to semifinal victories at the University of Texas.
The Broncos (20-4-1), the reigning Division I champions, got two sensational goals from Veronica Zepeda and a masterful clearance off the line by freshman Micaela Esquivel to overcome No. 2 North Carolina, 2-1, in a rematch of the 2001 title game.
Portland's Canadian connection was too much for No. 13 Penn State, as Christine Sinclair and Wanda Rozwadowska tallied in a 2-0 victory to send the Pilots (18-4-3) to their second NCAA final.
The victories set up the third meeting between conference rivals in a Division I title game. North Carolina topped Atlantic Coast Conference foes North Carolina State in 1988 and Duke in 1992.
Sunday's final at Mike A. Myers Stadium will be a rematch of a Nov. 3 WCC showdown in Portland. Santa Clara scored a 1-0 victory on Bree Horvath's 11th-minute goal to earn a share of the conference title.
Portland, which outshot the Broncos, 13-4, were without Sinclair, who played that day for Canada's women's national team in a CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup match in Victoria, British Columbia. Aly Wagner, who had played the previous evening for the U.S. women's national team in Seattle, suited up for Santa Clara.
North Carolina (21-2-4) failed to reach the title game for the second time in history. The Tar Heels, which had never previously failed to win titles in successive seasons, also missed the 1995 final, in which Portland lost to Notre Dame.
The Broncos' victory, in an entertaining game that featured severe shifts in momentum, was their third in a row over Carolina — following 13 defeats — since reaching the NCAA scholarship maximum in 1998.
Penn State (19-4-1), playing in the final four for the second time, was worn down in the second half by the Pilots' possession game.
ESPN will televise the final live Sunday at 2 p.m. CST.
Highlights from the semifinals:
Portland 2 Penn State 0: Sinclair scored her 24th goal of the season in the third minute and Rozwadowska doubled the advantage in the 58th minute as the Pilots overcame an at-times indifferent performance to put away the Nittany Lions.
Penn State, keeping eight players behind the ball to limit the Pilots' attacking space, caused Portland problems in midfield during the first half but failed to take advantage. Christie Welsh, in the 12th minute, and Heidi Drummond, in the 23rd, missed after the Nittany Lions' counterattack created outstanding chances, and Penn State couldn't manage another shot on target the rest of the game.
Welsh, a three-time All-American who won the Hermann Trophy and MAC Award as the nation's top player last year, fired wide on an open net after getting past onrushing Portland goalkeeper Lauren Arase. Drummond's shot to the far post from 15 yards was parried by a diving Arase.
Sinclair tallied in the early minutes on a tremendous individual effort. She overtook Penn State defender Gillian Samuel to win an air ball several yards inside the Nittany Lions' half, then took off on an unimpeded run to the box. Freshman goalkeeper Amanda Brown was leaning toward the near post, so Sinclair went the other way, firing just past the diving keeper into the right side of the net.
Portland was sharper and more aggressive in the second half, and their possession game forced the Nittany Lions to chase. As the Lions fatigued, the Pilots tightened their grip.
Betsy Barr was superb winning balls and distributing out of midfield; attacking midfielders Erin Misaki and Lindsey Huie, bottled up by Penn State early in the match, started finding seams to create opportunities.
Rozwadowska's goal arrived as her substitute, Rebekah Patrick, was waiting at the midfield flag for a stop in play. It came from the right, with Sinclair — at the edge of the box — taking a feed and quickly playing it back for Misaki.
Misaki played a superb cross into the middle for Emily Patterson, who volleyed the ball toward the left post. Brown made a diving stop but couldn't hold on, and her body landed facing the net. That enabled Patterson to kick the ball free, and after she tried to nudge it into the net, it skidded to the right. Rozwadowska tapped it into an open net.
Sinclair had nearly scored her second four minutes earlier, taking on Brown 1-on-1 from a Lauren Orlandos feed. Joanna Lohman almost pulled Penn State even off a flicked-on corner kick seconds before Rozwadowska's strike, but her volley from close range cleared the crossbar.
Santa Clara 2 North Carolina 1: The Tar Heels had little to show for their early domination and couldn't overcome a two-goal deficit to lose in the semifinals for the second time in 21 final-four appearances.
Zepeda, whose playing time the past two seasons has been limited by shin splints, scored on superb strikes in the 10th and 72nd minutes, then left the match with a possible dislocated shoulder after a Carolina defender yanked her down in the box, a confrontation that earned no whistle from referee Rachel Woo.
Freshman Lindsay Tarpley halved the Broncos' lead in the 79th minute with a goal nearly identical to her winner in the U.S. U-19 teams' title-game triumph over Canada at the FIFA U-19 World Championship in September.
The game's critical play was a leaping clearance off the line by Esquivel in the 14th minute after Tar Heels striker Anne Morrell beat goalkeeper Alyssa Sobolik with a header from a first-rate cross by Sara Randolph on the right wing.
Santa Clara absorbed heavy pressure from Carolina until the television-mandated break midway through the first half, but a tactical switch in midfield — with Leslie Osborne joining Devvyn Hawkins in front of the back four, a shift from a 4-1-2-3 alignment to a 4-2-1-3 — enabled the Broncos to compete on even terms and, in the second half, take charge of the action.
They scored against the run of play on a nicely constructed attack out of midfield early in the match. Devvyn Hawkins sent a pass forward to Bree Horvath to the left of the arc in front of the Tar Heels' box, and Horvath one-timed it to Zepeda in the arc.
Zepeda, with U.S. national-teamer Catherine Reddick on her back, moved left, then twirled to the right, maneuvering into space and firing a left-footer into the right side of the net, nearly the same spot Portland's Christine Sinclair had hit early in the Pilots' win in the first semifinal. The shot went through a lunging Carmen Watley's legs en route to the goal, which seemed to prevent goalkeeper Jenni Branam from seeing the shot until it was too late.
North Carolina repeatedly penetrated into Santa Clara's box, but more often than not its shots were wide or high. The Tar Heels outfired their foes, 19-7 — 9-1 in the first half — but put only six shots on frame, half of them in the sequence that resulted in Tarpley's goal.
Sobolik came up big when Alyssa Ramsey got free in the 35th minute, and defender Chardonnay Poole thwarted several chances with strong play in the penalty area.
Wagner nearly tallied 12 minutes into the second half, after a deflection off a Carolina defender onto her path, but Branam leapt to knock the shot aside. The Broncos created few clear shots while dictating play, mostly because of Reddick's and Watley's play in the back.
The Tar Heels were starting to have more of the play when Zepeda scored her seventh goal of the season and fourth of the NCAA Tournament. It occurred from a counter down the left, with Kristi Candau chasing a ball into Carolina's box. Branam, always quick to come off her line, ran at the ball but collided with defender Leslie Gaston as it, and Candau, arrived.
The ball rolled away from the scrum, and Zepeda, trailing the play, was presented with an open net from about 15 yards on the left side of the box. Her blast hit high in the middle of the net.
The strike sparked a Carolina renaissance led by Reddick, who had moved up front following the mid-half commercial break just before Zepeda's goal. Santa Clara was on its heels most of the final 20 minutes,
Carolina got its goal with a bit more than 11 minutes to play. Reddick took the ball into the Broncos' box, but her shot was blocked by defender Lana Bowen. Tarpley's rebound also was stopped by Bowen, but the freshman standout stepped left with the ball and found the net.
Tarpley's winner in the U-19 final Sept. 1 — from a cross by Santa Clara's Megan Kakadelas — also came on a follow-up after her first shot was blocked in front of the goal.
Susan Bush and Reddick missed by inches in the next four minutes. Bush sent the ball just past the far post after beating defender Jessica Ballweg on the right in the 82nd minute, and Reddick fired to the same spot off a 24-yard free kick to the right of the arc in the 83rd.