Bella Devey has some serious bounce. The first-year midfielder proved it after scoring her third goal of the season on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Devey cut inside on her right foot just outside the area and fired a shot toward the goal. The ball took a deflection off a defender and sailed into the back of the net. Devey then ran toward the UNC bench. She launched herself into a cartwheel, using the springs in her boots and contorting her body in mid-air to perform a backflip. She stuck the landing to the awe and delight of her teammates. There were no judges present, but even professional soccer players Romelu Lukaku and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang might have been impressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you just got to let your young ones go out there and be who they are,\u201d head coach Damon Nahas said. \u201cThat celebration was a product of that. They\u2019ve been working on it for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bella\u2019s backflip put an exclamation point on a comprehensive and convincing 4-0 victory for the No. 23 North Carolina women\u2019s soccer team against Alabama Thursday night at Dorrance Field.\u00a0The win marked four straight for the Tar Heels and their first against a Power Four opponent this season.<\/p>\n
Sophomore midfielder Linda Ullmark recorded three assists in the game, becoming the first UNC player to do that since Avery Patterson in 2022. 2024 Mac Hermann Trophy winner senior forward Kate Faasse scored twice \u2014 markingher second brace of the season. She now\u00a0leads the team with five goals and 13 points in the first seven games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was such a balance,\u201d Nahas said. \u201cWe have such a young team that you just saw them go for it. They were brave. They did the defensive work. They had the creative moments. The goals were phenomenal. Our core value for this month is selflessness. They were selfless today, and they were committed to win as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Nahas and his squad, much of the preseason and opening run of fixtures has been about putting the pieces of a new team together, building confidence and relationships. The Tar Heels tested themselves early with road trips to Tennessee and Georgia, but failed to score a goal in those games, losing both 2-0. UNC won four games at home against mid-major competition, but had yet to record a big win.<\/p>\n
After a meeting on Wednesday, Nahas knew his three captains, Faasse, senior midfielder Tessa Dellarose and graduate goalkeeper Marisa Shorrock, were locked in and bought in. He also knew that would trickle down to the rest of the team because of their strong leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt that connection,\u201d Ullmark said. \u201cIt\u2019s been growing for a while. We\u2019ve had a couple of losses, so to find that connection and energy with the entire team, we brought our game to a whole new level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bella Devey has some serious bounce. The first-year midfielder proved it after scoring her third goal of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-123033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}