The No. 3 North Carolina women’s lacrosse team defeated No. 14 Boston College (12-7, 4-3 ACC) 16-6 in the ACC tournament quarterfinal on Friday. The Tar Heels (14-2, 5-1 ACC) will face No. 1 Maryland in the ACC championship at 5 p.m. on Sunday. The game will be played at Fetzer Field, the site of the this year’s entire tournament.
Maryland has won the previous four conference titles, including the last three against the Tar Heels while Sunday’s game marks the fourth consecutive year UNC and the Terrapins have met in the ACC championship.
Here are a few notes on Friday’s game against the Eagles, and about UNC in general as the team prepares for the Terrapins:
A balanced attack and “overlooked” defense
After 10 different UNC players recorded goals in each of their final two regular season games against Jacksonville and Vanderbilt, the Tar Heels continued to display a balanced offensive attack against Boston College on Friday as eight different players tallied a goal.
Attackers Abbey Friend and Aly Messinger led the way for the Tar Heels with four and three goals respectively. Midfielders Brittney Coppa, Taylor George and Devin Markison added two goals apiece. Kelly Devlin, Jessica Grifiin, and UNC’s leading scorer Kara Cannizzaro all added one goal from the midfield position.
“We want a killer mentality and to attack the cage, which I thought Abbey and Aly did tremendously, especially from behind the cage, to set the tempo for us today,” coach Jenny Levy said. “Kara’s been leading our team and for her to only have two points [one goal and one assist] yet put 16 goals on the board, as a team, shows a lot of trust and competitive spirit among all of our players who had the opportunity to play today.”
UNC’s defense held Boston College, which came into Friday having found the net an average of 11 times per game, to only six goals. Combining a high-powered offense with a tough defense, the Tar Heels have outscored its last three opponents 52-12.
“I thought our defense did a great job,” Levy said. “They tend to get overlooked but holding a good opponent to six goals is fabulous. As a unit, they really buckled down and gave us a chance in the first half when the attack wasn’t converting.”
A maturing team
Out of the 33 players listed on the Tar Heel roster, 21 are freshmen or sophomores — several of which start or see significant playing time in the attack, midfield and on defense.
And while UNC acknowledges that it is a young team heading into Sunday’s championship game against an undefeated Maryland team, the Tar Heels view themselves as a team that has matured over the course of the season.
“We don’t like to use the excuse that we’re young. We are but I think we’re very talented as well,” Friend said. “We’ve kind of all brought each other up to the same level of excellence. That’s what we kind of pride ourselves on.”
Messinger, who recorded a career-high three goals and added an assist in her first ACC tournament game on Friday, said she doesn’t regard herself as a freshman because her teammates don’t treat her like one. The attacker added that the Tar Heels have matured by getting more comfortable with each other throughout the season.
“We’ve gotten so much better with communicating with each other,” Messinger said. “And now that we’re starting to know everyone’s tricks here and there, we can play together a lot easier and connect a lot better.”
But Messinger was not the only freshman to have an impact against the Eagles. In only her second career start, freshman goalkeeper Megan Ward tallied a career-high tying seven saves in her first complete game as a Tar Heel.
For the majority of the season, UNC has divided playing time equally between its two goalkeepers, typically with senior Lauren Maksym getting the start and Ward coming in at the start of the second half to finish the rest of the game. On Friday, Levy said Boston College didn’t attempt many shots on Ward in the first half so she decided to keep the freshman in goal for the entire game. And although Maksym didn’t see time on the field against the Eagles, the senior will likely contribute on Sunday against Maryland, Levy added.
“I thought (Megan) did a great job in the second half. But Max is real important to us — she’s a senior and has a lot of big game experience,” Levy said. “We’re just very fortunate we’ve got two goalies who work hard every day and help each other get better and it helps our team be better.
“Meg did great today and Max is a viable option. She’ll be ready to go if we need her and call upon her. We really take the moment as it comes.”
Focus on Maryland
Looking back at UNC’s disappointing 14-13 regular season loss to Maryland in early April, Friend said UNC failed to play at its highest level for the entire game.
“Just playing 60 full minutes,” Friend said of the team’s focus going into the ACC final. “The first game at Maryland we kind of had some ups and downs.
“This game on Sunday we’re really going to try to put the full game together and play complete from the goalie to the low attack.”
Levy’s game plan is similar to that of her junior attacker.
“For me as a coach, I’d really like to see us play a full sixty minutes and find our optimal level of performance,” Levy said. “I want our players to be free to fly and really just put it out there and experience an opportunity for 60 minutes to play at their best.
“If that happens, the result, regardless of what it is, we’ll be happy with that.”
Other notes:
- UNC and Maryland each had five players named to the 20-member 2013 All-ACC Women’s Lacrosse Team. The Tar Heel honorees were Cannizzaro, Coppa, Friend, senior midfielder Emily Garrity and junior defender Sloane Serpe.
- After winning the 2012 Tewaaraton Award, which is presented annually to the top male and female college lacrosse player in the nation, Maryland senior midfielder Katie Schwarzmann was named as one of the 25 finalists for the 2013 award along with fellow Terrapins Alex Aust and Iliana Sanza and UNC’s Cannizzaro. Schwarzmann and Sanza were named the 2012 ACC Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year respectively.
- Schwarzmann recorded five goals on six shots in Maryland’s first meeting with the Tar Heels this season while Cannizzaro tallied three goals before picking up her second yellow card with 8:30 left in the second half and being forced sit out the rest of the game.
- Maryland, which is seeking to win its fifth consecutive ACC title, has won the three previous championship games against the Tar Heels by at least four goals — 10-5 in 2010, 12-7 in 2011 and 14-10 last year.
- UNC has only claimed one ACC women’s lacrosse championship in school history — a defeat of Maryland in 2002 — and is 1-6 all-time in the title game.
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