Each week during the soccer season, we'll try to shine the spotlight on a player whose recent performances reinforce her place among the best in the nation. Consider it our way to check in on, or in some cases introduce, the personalities who will shape the race for espnW player of the year.
Tziarra King was nearly the length of the field from the opponent's goal with a choice to make.
The NC State forward's answer spoke volumes about why there is another contender emerging to stake its claim in a state that has some of the most crowded real estate in women's soccer.
King had just jogged at least 50 yards in the other direction to provide defensive cover on a free kick in the 85th minute of a game between No. 13 NC State and No. 20 Princeton. So when the Wolfpack's Jenna Butler won a clearing header off the set piece, King could have simply held her ground, helped move the ball around and tried to run out the clock. Her team already led 2-1, courtesy of a goal minutes earlier that she helped set up. The work was mostly done.
But she saw teammate Ricci Walkling gain control of the ball and turn toward the opposite end of the field. Standing almost even with her own 18-yard box, King also saw all that open space created by Princeton pushing players forward in search of the tying goal. So she ran.
Walkling played a picture-perfect pass that allowed King to accelerate into the path of the ball as she crossed the midfield stripe. King shrugged off one defender inside the Princeton end, then another inside the box. Almost out of room as the end line neared, she slipped a shot toward the far post at that almost impossibly acute angle that goal scorers master.
The embraces after the end-to-end dash were celebratory -- the 3-1 win was all the sweeter because Princeton had beaten NC State in the regular season a year ago and then ended its season in an NCAA tournament penalty shootout. But King also needed the support of those arms to catch her breath.
"I was exhausted after that play, but there was definitely excitement," King said. "The third goal is kind of like the exclamation mark on the game, so it adds that [sense] of 'We're doing it, we're getting the win.' But I was completely dead after that run."
One of college soccer's most prolific goal scorers has helped resuscitate a program because she is always willing to make those runs, or do anything else, in search of goals. It is an underdog's mentality, maintained even as NC State is more and more often the favorite.
North Carolina's "Triangle" is a hub of women's soccer. Between campus and neutral sites it has already hosted the NCAA Women's College Cup 15 times and will again this year. It is home to the most successful college program of all time at the University of North Carolina. It now also is home to the North Carolina Courage, who this year breezed to the best regular- season record in the National Women's Soccer League and beat Women's Champions League winner Lyon over the summer.
NC State played its part in that ritzy space for a time, reaching the College Cup in 1988 and 1989, but it gradually receded even deeper into the shadow cast by the Tar Heels and, increasingly, Duke.
When the current coaching staff took over prior to the 2013 season, NC State hadn't so much as visited the NCAA tournament since 1996.
Changing that culture took time. More tangible, it also took goals. NC State scored 14 as a team the season before King arrived. She alone scored 17 a season ago as a sophomore.
A first-team all-ACC selection in 2017, the conference long the gold standard in the sport, King has 30 goals in two-plus seasons. Only four players in Division I, all already seniors, have as many as 35, the minimum threshold to quality for the NCAA active career leaders.
So it is no coincidence that NC State ended its postseason drought by making the tournament in each of King's first two seasons, reaching the Sweet 16 in 2016 and the second round in 2017.
"They sat me down and said, 'This is where we want our program to be; you can help this program become that,'" King said of the recruiting pitch. "I really liked that. You can go into a winning program and continue to win, but sometimes when you have that underdog mentality it can really be awesome to come and turn a program around."
NC State's week, which also included a 1-0 win at Penn in which King produced the only goal with a sublime bit of skill, was a homecoming for the forward. The game at Princeton marked her first opportunity to play in her home state as a collegian, although the game in Philadelphia was actually closer to her hometown of Sicklerville, New Jersey.
In both cases, she had more friends, family and well-wishers in the stands than she could count.
Yet amidst all the familiar sounds echoing from the stands, including the cowbells her mom and grandparents bring to games near and far, one was as easy as ever to pick out.
"He is literally the loudest person in the stands," King said of her dad. "He's just yelling at everything, yelling at the refs. ... There's always something coming out of his mouth."
A basketball player at the school now known as Rowan University in New Jersey, Ritch King didn't know soccer until his daughter and two sons started playing the game. He learned quickly enough to coach his daughter on the Winslow Tigers club team, but against the backdrop of a club scene in a state that has produced world-class talent for decades, they were the upstarts.
"I would say it's been underdog [role] my whole life," King said. "I'm not going to lie."
So when NC State came calling with its sales pitch, something resonated about the opportunity to build something from the ground up. And when the field opened up in front of her in the 85th minute Sunday, she didn't take the win for granted. She went for goal.