After not playing in the Olympics first round, U.S. soccer star and UNC alum Heather O\u2019Reilly got the start against Colombia Saturday. She didn\u2019t do a whole lot with her time. She left in the 66th minute with not much to show for it and the U.S. ahead 1-0.<\/p>\n
After fellow Tar Heel Tobin Heath came in to take her place, the U.S. team scored two goals to salt away a 3-0 victory and ensure themselves of the quarterfinals. Heath footed a seeing-eye lead pass to Abby Wambach who scored to give the Americans a 2-0 advantage with 15 minutes left.<\/p>\n
A couple of minutes later, a goal by Carli Lloyd wrapped up the win.<\/p>\n
Midfielder Shannon Boxx\u2019 hamstring injury helped give O\u2019Reilly an opportunity to play despite the fact that she has lost her starting position to Heath and Megan Rapinoe.<\/p>\n
Former U.S. player Brandi Chastain, now an analyst for NBC sports, said that O\u2019Reilly didn\u2019t play terribly but her effort wasn\u2019t the quality that the U.S. coaches are looking for.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not her best game,\u201d Chastain said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly got a good lead pass from Wambach early in the game but she didn\u2019t take her time to play the ball across the field and instead got off a lackluster kick on a good scoring opportunity. She had one shot on goal blocked almost immediately. She committed a foul, had the ball stolen from her and was beaten to other balls. All in all it was a rusty performance after not playing for a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
Chastain still contends that the veteran O\u2019Reilly, who has played in three Olympics and been on the national team since she was 17 years old, is still important to the team despite losing her starting position and having a rough outing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to adjust to not being a starter,\u201d Chastain said from her own experience. \u201cBut what Heather is great at is that she recognizes this is a team sport. She\u2019s one cog in the wheel and she understands she has a role. And she\u2019s willing to fulfill that role.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly won\u2019t be giving up her playing time easily. \u201cShe comes to training to work hard and get better,\u201d she said. \u201cI love Heather O\u2019Reilly because she is as passionate and emotional as she is hard working.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United States plays North Korea on Tuesday at 12:15 p.m. Eastern time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After not playing in the Olympics first round, U.S. soccer star and UNC alum Heather O\u2019Reilly got the start against Colombia Saturday. She didn\u2019t do…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-north-carolina-tar-heels","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-80-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4065,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4063\/revisions\/4065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}