UNC men's lacrosse team's youth show promise in weekend games against Princeton and Penn

If there’s anything UNC men’s lacrosse head coach Joe Breschi knows from his 34 years of coaching lacrosse, it’s that you can’t teach experience. 

Breschi is coaching a young team. Underclassmen contributed on over 77 percent of North Carolina’s goals in a 15-9 loss to Princeton on Friday and a 13-9 win against Penn on Sunday.

“That’s why you play these games with a lot of ranked opponents,” Breschi said after the Princeton game. “You want to play as many as you can to prepare for the guys for, certainly, the ACC games. You can’t teach experience, they gotta go out and be in it and feel it.” 

The lack of experience creates an opportunity for players like graduate attackman Logan McGovern to come in and offer their guidance. While he’s played in 54 games between his five years at Bryant and North Carolina, his fellow attackmen starters, redshirt first-year attackman Dominic Pietramala and first-year attackman Owen Duffy, have just five games under their belts.

“With all the experience, I do have a different perspective from the youth, and I definitely have a couple more games under my belt,” McGovern said. “I’ve been through some wins and losses, so I think at the end of the day it’s the ability to lift everyone up around us.”

The youth have played a large part in North Carolina’s offense and showcased their ability to score goals — making up three of North Carolina’s top four scorers — but they haven’t been without fault.

Breschi said he harped on them about their quality of shots. Rather than flashy shot attempts, Breschi wanted them to take better shots that had a better chance of going in the goal. Due in part to the team's shot selection, the Tar Heels went on scoring droughts in parts of each game.

Against Princeton, the team suffered droughts of 15 and 22 minutes. The Tigers scored eight goals in those stretches, essentially putting the game out of reach for North Carolina. Then, against the Quakers on Sunday, the Tar Heels didn’t score for the rest of the first half after notching two goals in the first three minutes of the game.

In the second half on Sunday, though, North Carolina started to shoot better, scoring 11 goals.

Why? According to Breschi, it's because they’re coachable — he told his team as much after the third quarter of the Penn game.

“I said, ‘Coachability. I know you’re proud, I know you want it to look good hitting the corner but sometimes the look good is [the score],’” Breschi said. “If you put points on the board, it doesn’t matter how it goes in.”

Despite Breschi’s experience, there’s something he can’t teach them — swagger.

Whether it’s Pietramala getting the entire sideline onto the field to celebrate after a goal or Duffy fist-pumping after a crucial score, the young players on the team have plenty of flair.

The swagger of the young guys is something that Breschi doesn’t want to take away, but it is something he wants to try and keep in check through his older players like McGovern.

“It’s good but also you want to temper it — that’s what we use [McGovern] for," Breschi said. "Being a captain and a leader down at that end — helping them facilitate the game management, game awareness piece of just understanding when is a good time to go, when is a good time to have a possession.”

With nine games still left to go in the regular season, including five against ranked teams, UNC's young players have plenty of chances to gain the experience needed to help the Tar Heels make it back to the tournament for the first time since 2021.

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