W. Lacrosse: UNC dominated in _¶ nal

TOWSON Md. — They didn't know what to say.

Coach Jenny Levy knelt on the sideline. Goalkeeper Logan Ripley turned and faced away from the field. Senior Amber Falcone walked back to the midfield circle.

None of them could ever have fathomed that this would occur. That in the pinnacle of women's lacrosse the NCAA Championship they would match the worst loss in UNC history — a margin of 14.

It was unimaginable. It was incomprehensible. But the way Northwestern was playing quite frankly the 21-7 defeat was unavoidable.

So even in the first half there they were blank-faced and emotionless" most seemingly unaware of their surroundings.

Each was in the midst of being thoroughly blitzed by a 10-0 Wildcat run. A run that would leave no doubt as to who is the best team in the nation. A run that left many scrambling to put this Northwestern team in a historical light but left UNC struggling for respectability.

""It kind of got to the point where we just wanted to keep our heads up and keep going at it" Falcone said. Give them everything we had until the end. Unfortunately it wasn't going our way. There wasn't much to say. We knew what was going on" and we knew what we had to fix.""

Moments after Kristen Carr lost the opening draw" there was Northwestern's Hilary Bowen charging at the goal. But with UNC defender Meredith Newton in her way she had no opening. Yet somehow the Tar Heel sophomore slipped and there was the first tally. The first of several to put it lightly.

Newton slowly rose to her feet as Falcone called the defensive group together — apparently searching for answers for something that might reassure a team unknowingly on the edge of disaster. Ripley banged the post with her stick once an action that would become habitual by day's end.

Three minutes in and there was Northwestern's second. Six minutes later" another. Fifteen seconds more — boom — another.

""It was 4-2" and the thing I was noticing was we were having quick possessions on offense and we were turning the ball over on unforced errors said Levy of her team's eight first-half giveaways. If you play Northwestern" you can't do that.""

The North Carolina coaching staff tried any and everything to adjust" but to no avail.

They paced. They panted. They told the team to not try and save the world. Nothing worked.

Northwestern scored their first 15 goals on 17 shots. They had scored 10 straight without a UNC response.

Such was the Tar Heels' misfortune that after a Wildcat goal made it 11-2 a yellow card issued to freshman Laura Zimmerman gave Northwestern possession again — a possession that quickly led to another subsequent score.

Ripley could do nothing to prevent the onslaught. Even with Levy talking and encouraging her during media timeouts the shots were just too high" time after time.

""Unfortunately" we weren't getting saves in the cage that we've gotten this year" Levy said. Logan's been great all year. At times we've made mistakes this year on defense that we've been able to recover from.

""The looks they were getting on cage were high percentage"" so we weren't giving Logan a lot of opportunities to save the ball.""

When it mattered most" even in the most successful season in the program's history" victory was thoroughly taken from the team's grasp.

""I think emotionally it's hard on anyone to end your season in a game like this" junior Jenn Russell said. But we've done a great job this year" and I'm proud to be a part of this team.""


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