the box on top and, yes, a few over the top passes.
As opposed to the one team (Northern Illinois?) that set the impossibly high line to force offsides, NC State decided to bunker it.
The announcers, I discovered, were not mistaken when they listed a 5-person back line. They were all there...and then some.
I thought Norman got a bit of a handle on it when he put Ospeck on the left wingback and moved Izzy Engle to the right side. Both of them have the speed and technical ability to bear their mark and then make inbound passes. Of course, with the box as congested as the Cross Bronx Highway, not many of those crosses will find paydirt. Plus, ND doesn't have that many people who play "in the air," which may be why Sophia Fisher was in. And why Izzy was moved back into the middle in the last 10 minutes.
As for the top of the box, Restovich tried to get a few passes off from the top and almost had Chukwu on one.
In both instances (side and top),I'd like to see some weakside cuts to the ball or the posts with the hope that something might connect or end up by an Irish foot.
As for mid- and longer-range shots, Joseph tried a few of them, but they were off-line. Maybe I would've like to have seen Engle try some of her Albert-esque shots, but she was on the side a lot and the Wolfpack were very onto her.
Lastly, the over the top passes from the Abbys and Logan: I'd like to say hit them earlier in transition, but the Wolfpack backs were never that far forward, so it was hard to get space.
I hear what you're saying: get one of them to a big forward who can bring it down under control, turn and shoot. That would be Mrowicki or Fisher, the former of which seems to be AWOL.
Of course, all of this was set up by the Wolfpack scoring first....that was good enough for them, even after the Irish leveled the score.
If ND had scored first, the block party in the box would've had fewer folks.