University of North Carolina Athletics
Lacrosse Travels To No. 2 Maryland Saturday
March 20, 2003 | Men's Lacrosse
March 20, 2003
2003 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA MEN'S LACROSSE GAME NOTES
North Carolina Tar Heels (No. 13, 4-2, ACC 1-0) vs. Maryland Terrapins (No. 2, 4-0, ACC 1-0)
March 22, 2003, 1 p.m., Byrd Stadium, College Park, Md.
NO. 13 TAR HEELS HIT THE ROAD FOR KEY MATCHUP AT NO. 2 MARYLAND:
Buoyed by a key Atlantic Coast Conference victory over No. 8 Duke on Wednesday night, the No. 13 North Carolina men's lacrosse team hits the road this weekend to play one of the nation's undefeated teams, the 4-0 Maryland Terrapins Saturday at Byrd Stadium in College Park, Md. Faceoff time against the No. 2 Maryland team is at 1 p.m. After successive close losses to Navy and Notre Dame two weeks ago, the Tar Heels have righted themselves in the last three games and played much better lacrosse. Carolina heads to College Park on a three-game win skein started last week at Ohio State 9-8 and then continued against Denver 10-6 and Duke 14-9. UNC is 4-2 overall and 1-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Terps head into the match at 4-0 with wins over Duke, Towson, Bucknell and Stony Brook.A QUICK LOOK AT THE HEELS' PERSONNEL: Carolina has been led by a solid defense and an opportunistic offense so far in 2003. The defense is yielding only 7.22 goals per game behind starting close defenders Ronnie Staines, Charley Conkling and Stephen McElduff and key reserves Matt Pessagno and J.J. LaSeta. Long stick middies Bowen White, Hayward Howard and Billy Staines have also done a great job as have short stick defensive middies Dan Stringer and Dave Duffy. Sophomore Paul Spellman has a 7.28 goals against average so far this season and a save percentage of .571. Offensively, Carolina has its most depth in several years and has consistently played five attackmen while running three midfield units in games. Sophomore attackman Jed Prossner leads the Tar Heels in scoring with 22 points on 15 goals and 7 assists. Senior middie Austin Garrison has been spectacular with 15 points (10 goals, 5 assists) and a .370 shooting percentage. Sophomore middie Bryant Will leads the Tar Heels in assists with nine and has four goals for 13 points overall. Other leading scorers are sophomore attackman Mike McCall (9 goals, 3 assists, .474 shooting percentage), senior midfielder Kyle Bell (7 goals, 3 assists, .333 shooting percentage) and freshman attackman Ryan Blair (4 goals, 6 assists). Freshman Scott Falatach who roams both the attack and midfield has four goals and three assists, sophomore middie Lance Zimmerman has four goals and one assist, junior attackman Andrew Lucas (who has missed two games with a shoulder problem) has three goals and senior middie Steven Will has two assists. Carolina is also getting key contributions in the midfield from senior Peter Anselmo, junior Johnny Seivold and freshmen Andrew McElduff and Kyle Henderson.
AN UPSET WIN FOR THE TAR HEELS: With the 14-9 win over No. 8 Duke the Tar Heels scored an upset victory in the first game of a four-match stretch against teams all ranked ahead of UNC in the USILA poll. The win over Duke was the first by UNC over a team ranked higher in the poll since Carolina upset a No. 5 ranked Blue Devil team last year in Durham by a 9-7 score. It was also only the second game in the last 13 played by UNC where the lower ranked team won. The other was earlier this season when Navy beat Carolina in four overtimes at Annapolis, 9-8. Carolina will be the underdog in its next three games as all three opponents are ranked above the Tar Heels in this week's U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll. The win over Duke, however, should give the Tar Heels confidence as they enter a stretch versus No. 2 Maryland, No. 4 Johns Hopkins and No. 1 Virginia.
NORTH CAROLINA VS. MARYLAND: Carolina and Maryland have played 47 times since the series started in 1964. Maryland leads the series 30-17. This has been a series of contrasting trends. The Terrapins won the first 17 games in the series before UNC's first win in 1981. Beginning with that win Carolina won 17 of 23 games against the Terps through the 1996 season. Maryland, however, is currently on a seven-game win streak against the Tar Heels. Carolina's last win was 17-16 at Chapel Hill in 1996.
CAROLINA VERSUS THE ACC: North Carolina's win over Duke Wednesday night was another milestone win for Carolina in Coach John Haus' rebuilding effort. UNC has now won three of its last seven matches against Atlantic Coast Conference opponents. The Wednesday night win over Duke was also, rather amazingly, UNC's first home ACC win since beating Maryland 17-16 in 1996. Compare that with the fact UNC was 1-19 against ACC foes from the start of the 1997 season through the first two ACC games of the 2001 campaign. Since the start of the 1997 season UNC is 1-8 versus Virginia, 0-7 versus Maryland and 3-7 versus Duke. The Tar Heels have not beaten Maryland since 1996. Carolina has not posted a win against an ACC opponent at home since beating Virginia 19-18 in 1996. Beating ACC teams is one of Coach John Haus' top priority as he continues his tenure with Carolina.
THE DEFENSE HAS NOT RESTED: North Carolina has been a much better defensive team than in the past few years and that has held true through the first six games of the 2003 season. The Tar Heels have a goals against average of 7.22 goals per game in six games. Under Coach John Haus, Carolina averaged giving up 8.95 goals per game in 2001 and 8.78 goals per game in 2002.
GARRISON IS ACC PLAYER OF THE WEEK THIS WEEK: Senior middie Austin Garrison was named ACC Player of the Week Monday after his performance in two wins last week. The New Canaan, Conn. senior has three goals and one assist in each of the wins over Ohio State and Denver.
A BEVY OF CLOSE GAMES: Of Carolina's last 23 games, 13 have been decided by one or two goals, including three matches this year. Three have gone to overtime.
YOUTH WINS OUT: Carolina's top offensive stat leaders are a group dominated by underclassmen as only two seniors and one junior are amongst the Tar Heels' top nine scorers so far this season. Austin Garrison as the second leading scorer, Kyle Bell as the fifth leading scorer and Andrew Lucas as the ninth leading scorer are the exception to the freshman/sophomore dominance on the offensiv end.
A BURST OF OFFENSE: Carolina scored its most goals of the season with 14 in the win over Duke this past Wednesday. It was also the most goals against an ACC opponent since the Tar Heels lost to Virginia 17-16 in double overtime in the 2000 ACC Tournament semifinals.
BELL LEADS HEELS PAST BUCKNELL: Senior middie Kyle Bell led Carolina past Bucknell in UNC's season opener this year with the first hat trick of his career.
THE PROSSNER FILE: Carolina sophomore attacker not only leads the Heels in scoring with 22 points but he has at least four in five of six games. Prossner had successive hat tricks against Bucknell and Navy and then had two goals and two assists against Denver. Against Duke Prossner equaled his career high for points in a game with six on four goals and two assists.
B. WILL STEPS UP: After a slow start, sophomore middie Bryant Will showed his best stats of the season so far in the outing against Denver. Will had two goals and two assists versus the Pioneers. That tied his career high for points in a game.
MCCALL PLAYS TALL AGAINST DUKE: Carolina attackman Mike McCall stepped up his game against Duke as he scored a season high three goals and equaled his season high for points with three as well. McCall's play was highlighted by a behind the backer in the fourth quarter against the Blue Devils.
FALATACH THE LAST TWO GAMES: Freshman attackman/midfielder Scott Falatach has started make some big contributions to the UNC offense in the past two games as he had one goal and one assist against Denver and two goals in the win over Duke.
FACING OFF: Carolina is batting .561 in the faceoff circle so far. Junior Kevin Frew is .552 in the circle and sophomore Paul Burnett is at .569. Frew won 16 of 17 faceoffs against Bucknell this year, best individual faceoff percentage in a game in UNC history and tied for fifth in number of faceoff wins in a game.
SPELLMAN BETWEEN THE PIPES: Sophomore goalkeeper Paul Spellman enters the Maryland game with a 7.28 goals against average and .571 save percentage. His 18 saves against Ohio State equaled his career high set originally at Johns Hopkins last season. In 19 games as a Tar Heel, Spellman has had only two games where he did not have more saves than goals allowed.
CAROLINA IN THE POLL: UNC is ranked #13 this week by the coaches in U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll.
COACH JOHN HAUS: North Carolina head coach John Haus, a 1983 Carolina graduate, is in his third year as the head coach of the Tar Heel program. Prior to returning to UNC, he was the head coach at Washington College for four years where his teams were 47-21 and the head coach at Johns Hopkins where his teams went 20-7. As the Tar Heel head coach he is 18-13 in three seasons. In eight years as a collegiate head coach his teams are now 85-41. Including his time as a player, assistant coach and head coach he has been involved with teams that have a combined record of 190-76 in the collegiate ranks.
THE SCHEDULE TOUGHENS: The docket for the Tar Heel lacrosse team began heating up with Wednesday's game against No. 8 Duke. The following three games find the Heels matching up with No. 2 Maryland Saturday, No. 4 Johns Hopkins March 29 and No. 1 Virginia April 5.
THE LONGEST GAME IN NCAA HISTORY: When the North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Navy Midshipmen on March 2, 2002 by an 11-10 score, they found themselves making some college lacrosse history too. The game was six overtimes in length and lasted 83 minutes and 39 seconds. That made it the longest game in college history. The longest previous games in history were five overtime affairs involving Cornell on two occasions. Even more remarkably it was the third successive season in which Carolina had beaten Navy 11-10. The Heels beat Navy 11-10 in Chapel Hill in 2000 on a goal in the first overtime of that game and the Heels beat the Mids in Annapolis, Md. in 2001 by 11-10 on a goal by Jeff Sonke with one second to play. This year's marathon event was finally decided when senior midfielder Pat Jackson intercepted a Navy clearing pass just inside midfield and scored into an empty net from 40 yards out. Carolina and Navy nearly topped that this season when the Mids avenged those three defeats with a 9-8 overtime win at Annapolis. It was the second longest game in UNC history. And remarkably the game went overtime only when Andrew Lucas tied it for UNC with three-tenths of a second left in regulation.
AN EIGHT-WIN SEASON FOR CAROLINA: When North Carolina finished last season 8-5 it gave the Tar Heels eight wins in a season for only the second time since 1996 when UNC finished 12-5. Carolina's only other eight-win season since then was 2000 when the Heels were 8-6. Carolina has also had only its second winning season since 1996. Carolina was 6-7 in 1997, 7-8 in 1998 and 6-9 in 1999, then went 8-6 in 2000 and 6-6 in 2001 in Coach John Haus' first season.
