The No. 1 North Carolina men’s lacrosse team defeated Furman 7-3 on Saturday in Greenville, S.C. After a close first quarter, UNC outscored Furman 5-1 over the rest of the game.
What happened?
North Carolina (2-0) had five turnovers in sloppy first quarter. First-year midfielder Justin Anderson and junior midfielder Brian Cannon both scored for the Tar Heels, but the Paladins (0-3) answered back twice. The teams were tied 2-2 after 15 minutes.
Chris Cloutier, a junior attackman and UNC’s savior in the 2016 National Championship, put his team back on top with a second-quarter goal to give the Tar Heels the lead.
After redshirt junior goalie Brian Balkam saved a point-blank Furman shot in the final two minutes, UNC doubled its lead with Anderson’s second goal of the game.
At the half, Furman goalie Alec Van de Bovenkamp had eight saves, and Balkman had seven. Senior midfielder Stephen Kelly won seven of eight first-half faceoffs, which helped UNC take a 4-2 lead into the break.
The third quarter remained scoreless for over 12 minutes until Cloutier recorded his second goal of the game. The Paladins called a timeout soon after, but couldn’t find any offense and entered the fourth trailing 5-2.
Furman’s William Holcomb broke his team’s scoring drought early in the fourth quarter — his goal narrowed UNC’s lead to 5-3.
About five minutes later, sophomore attackman Timmy Kelly responded with a goal to bring UNC’s lead to 6-3, and first-year midfielder William Perry added one more to put away Furman.
