Freshman leads North Carolina over LU in soccer

By Chris Lang
Sports writer
Published: September 16, 2008

Alex Dixon’s first collegiate goal didn’t come with a whole lot of fanfare. The second one was an entirely different story.

After the North Carolina freshman punched in a goal after a Liberty turnover Tuesday night, sealing the Tar Heels’ 4-1 victory, he turned a cartwheel and launched into a full-body flip.

The move even elicited a couple of cheers from 2,113 fans wondering how a tight match had turned so ugly, so quickly.

“You should have added a twist,” one of his teammates joked.

“I’d never done it in a game,” Dixon said. “But some of my teammates wanted me to do it, so I just did it.”

Dixon earlier scored the go-ahead goal, just before halftime, that lifted the eighth-ranked Heels to a 2-1 lead going into intermission.

Michael Callahan headed the ball off a corner kick from Garry Lewis, and it landed at Dixon’s feet in the box. He tapped it backwards with his right foot, pushing it past Flames keeper Paul Gilbert with 1:00 left in the half.

“It comes natural, I guess,” Dixon said. “In practice, it happens all the time. You’ve just got to be ready for it.”

Liberty (3-2) answered quickly after UNC (5-0-1) scored the first goal with 33:07 left in the first half. Joshua Boateng ripped a rebound into the lower right part of the goal to knot the score 17 seconds later.

But the Tar Heel goal in the final minute was a momentum killer.

“You’ve got to concentrate and clear that ball out,” Liberty coach Jeff Alder said. “If you go into halftime 1-1, they’re thinking, ‘we’ve really got to be on our toes here.’ And we’re thinking, ‘hey, we’re right there.’”

The Flames were right there until the final 11 minutes. Though Liberty struggled to generate scoring chances, it still trailed 2-1 until Brian Shriver took a crossing pass from Chris Lebo and finished for a 3-1 Carolina lead.

Alder was unhappy because he saw a referee raised his flag, a sign that the Heels were offsides on the play.

“When you see the flag go up, instantly, you kind of relax a little bit,” Alder said. “What happened was that the guy ran from behind, so the other (referee) said he was no longer involved in the play.

“Mentally, you’ve got to stay tuned in and play to the whistle. Our guys that he was offsides, and we kind of froze for a split second.”

UNC was making its second trip to Lynchburg in the last three seasons, and both times, the Heels were ranked in the Top 10 nationally. (Ranked No. 1 in 2006, UNC beat Liberty 1-0).

Hosting the match is a coup for Liberty, which made its first NCAA tournament appearance last fall.

“They like the fact that we’re going to come out and play them straight up,” Alder said. “We’re not going to bunker in and just defend and hope to keep the game close by locking everybody in front of the goal.

“They like the fact that we play good soccer, that we play clean soccer, and they know the environment is going to be good. Our guys play soccer the right way, and Carolina has respect for that.”