North Carolina men’s lacrosse coach Joe Breschi could have been disappointed in his team’s performance after its upset loss to Massachusetts on Saturday, but instead of thinking about the loss negatively, Breschi said he’s excited about the opportunity to improve.
“So many things came out of this game that we’re excited to move forward,” Breschi said. “We know it’s the middle of February, and we have a very healthy schedule in front of us.”
Breschi said the matchup between UNC and UMass was evenly played on both ends but that he liked the effort his team put forth.
Despite the Tar Heels loss, Breschi was optimistic talking about the good things UNC did to give them a lead going in to the last quarter.
“We came up on the short end,” Breschi said. “But there are a lot of positives to build off of from that experience.”
Holman goes ‘kamikaze’
With just seconds left in the third quarter Saturday and the ball on UNC’s end of the field, It seemed as though the quarter would run out before any significant action could take place.
But seniors Ryan Creighton and Marcus Holman were determined to use every second they could to give UNC one more opportunity.
Creighton, who had just picked up the ball on a turnover, saw that the clock was winding down in the quarter and quickly heaved the ball to the other end of the field.
“We kind of made eye contact before he threw the ball,” Holman said. “He threw the ball probably 60-70 yards through the air.”
Holman said he tried to break free from his defenseman and luckily snagged the ball.
“I knew I didn’t have a lot of time left,” Holman said. “I kind of went kamikaze to the goal, and I was able to get the goal in there before the quarter ran out.”
Bitter in the box
Sophomore attackman Jimmy Bitter is known for having a hard, accurate shot from range, but against the Minutemen, he gave off an entirely different perception.
Committing three penalties, Bitter found himself in the penalty box as many times as the entire opposing UMass team.
“Last year I had zero penalties the entire year,” Bitter said. “In this game I had three alone.”
Breschi isn’t too concerned about the penalties, though, because he said they came from hard play.
“We pride ourselves on riding,” Breschi said. “They were all considered riding penalties.”
Breschi said that he is going to continue to encourage his attackman to play hard to keep opposing teams from successful clears and that, despite the penalties, UNC rode well on Saturday.
“We had six ride backs this game which is unheard of these days,” Breschi said. “We’re never going to tell our guys not to work hard. It’s just about knowing when to pull up.”
For Bitter, the uncharacteristic plethora of penalties is still unacceptable going forward.
“That can’t happen again,” Bitter said.
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