University of North Carolina Athletics
Carolina Looks For Second Win In A Row At UMBC
April 14, 2005 | Men's Lacrosse
April 14, 2005
2005 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA MEN'S LACROSSE GAME NOTES
North Carolina Tar Heels (3-7) vs. UMBC Retrievers (5-5)
Saturday, April 16, 2005, 1:00 p.m., UMBC Stadium, Baltimore, Md.
North Carolina Men's Lacrosse Media Contact: Dave Lohse, 919-962-7257, dlohse@uncaa.unc.edu
Carolina Athletics on the World Wide Web at
http://TarHeelBlue.collegesports.com
TAR HEELS LOOK FOR SECOND WIN IN A ROW SATURDAY AT UMBC: After halting a three-match losing streak with a 14-5 victory over Air Force this past Wednesday, the North Carolina men's lacrosse team will seek to make it two wins in a row when the Tar Heels match up against the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Retrievers Saturday. The game will be played at UMBC Stadium on the UMBC campus in suburban Baltimore County. The opening face-off will take place at 1:07 p.m. and the match will be televised live by WMAR-TV in Baltimore. Carolina heads into the match with a record of 3-7 after the Tar Heels' convincing win over Air Force on Wednesday. The Falcons represented the first team Carolina played this year that is not currently ranked among the Top 16 teams in the nation in the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll. UMBC, coached by Don Zimmerman, heads into the match on Saturday with a record of 5-5. The Retrievers are coming off a 10-4 win over Binghamton on Wednesday in an America East Conference match. Zimmerman served as an assistant coach at North Carolina from 1979-82. He was on the staff at UNC when Tar Heel head coach John Haus was a player for three years in 1980, 1981 and 1982. Haus also served as an assistant coach at Johns Hopkins during the 1988, 1989 and 1990 seasons when Zimmerman was the head coach of the Blue Jays. Coaching together at Hopkins, Zimmerman and Haus took the Blue Jays to the 1989 NCAA championship match, the last time Hopkins has appeared in the national final.
TAR HEELS REBOUND FROM LOSSES WITH WIN OVER AIR FORCE: After enduring a three-match losing streak against a trio of teams ranked in the top three in the nation, UNC bounced back with an impressive 14-5 over Air Force this past Wednesday at Fetzer Field. The victory over the Falcons came just three days after Air Force took No. 14 Notre Dame to overtime in South Bend, Ind. before the Fighting Irish pulled out a 14-13 win. Earlier in the year Notre Dame had beaten Carolina. On Wednesday, however, the Tar Heels came to play and took care of business early, allowing North Carolina head coach John Haus to play every UNC player who was dressed in uniform in the game. Carolina scored the opening 10 goals of the game to lead 10-0 at halftime. Nine different Tar Heels scored goals in the first half of the match with senior attackman Mike McCall leading the way with three first half goals. Three Tar Heels scored the first goals of their careers in the first half of the match -- junior attackman Sean Link, senior close defenseman Charley Conkling and freshman close defenseman Tim Kaiser. Link also recorded his first career assist when his pass across the box to freshman midfielder Rob Driscoll led to a goal with less than a second remaining on the clock in the first half. After Air Force scored the opening goal of the second half 12 seconds into the third quarter, UNC ran off three goals in a span of 2:40 to put the game away at 13-1. The mass substitutions started at that point. Carolina's talented attack had the bulk of the scoring with McCall scoring three goals and adding two assists, Ryan Blair scoring three goals and adding one assist and Jed Prossner scoring one goal and adding two assists. But UNC did not rely exclusively on the attack for its offensive against Air Force. Four midfielders and two defensemen contributed goals and senior midfielder Bryant Will had his best feeding match of the season as he recorded three assists. UNC had a season high 70 ground balls in the match with four UNC players recording career highs for ground balls in a game -- senior midfielder Lance Zimmerman with 10, junior defenseman Billy Staines with nine, freshman defenseman Tim Kaiser with seven and sophomore attackman Sam Wagner with five.
SPELLMAN MOVES CLOSER TO SAVES RECORD: UNC senior goalkeeper Paul Spellman (Cockeysville, Md.) played the first three quarters of the match against Air Force this past Wednesday and was outstanding as he made eight saves while allowing only three goals. He also scooped up five ground balls. The eight saves made by Spellman pushed his career total to 627. Spellman now needs just two saves to tie the career record for saves at Carolina. That record is 629 held by Tom Sears, who played from 1980-83, earning National Player of the Year honors while leading the Tar Heels to the NCAA championship in 1982.
ZIMMERMAN'S OUTSTANDING DAY VERSUS THE FALCONS: Senior midfielder Lance Zimmerman (Cockeysville, Md.) had one of the best days of his career in the face-off circle as the Tar Heels defeated Air Force 14-5 on April 13. Zimmerman won 13 of the 15 face-offs he took in the match. That is just two shy of the 15 face-offs he won against Duke on March 19. Zimmerman's face-off winning percentage of .867 in the match against Air Force was the best he has ever produced in a single game. He also claimed a match high 10 ground balls for UNC. That total exceeded his previous career high of nine established against Duke on March 19. Zimmerman's performance improved his season's face-off totals to 80 wins in 153 tried for a percentage of .523. UNC No. 1 backup in the face-off circle, junior Dave Werry, also did outstanding work against Air Force as he won four of his six face-off tries.
WEDNESDAY WAS FINAL HOME MATCH FOR 10 TAR HEEL SENIORS: Last Wednesday's match between North Carolina and Air Force marked the final home appearance at Fetzer Field for 10 Tar Heel seniors. Playing their final home games Wednesday were senior attackman Jed Prossner (Easton, Md.), senior attackman Mike McCall (Yorktown, N.Y.), senior midfielder Matt McIntosh (Brentwood, Tenn.), senior goalkeeper Paul Spellman (Cockeysville, Md.), senior midfielder Lance Zimmerman (Cockeysville, Md.), senior midfielder Bryant Will (Phoenix, Md.), senior defenseman David DiBianco (Washington, D.C.), senior goalkeeper Andrew Posil (Towson, Md.), senior defenseman J.J. LaSeta (Phoenix, Md.) and senior defenseman Charley Conkling (Lutherville, Md.).
TAR HEELS COMPETE AGAINST KILLER SCHEDULE IN 2005: North Carolina is playing what may be the toughest schedule in the nation during the 2005 season. Altogether, UNC played its first nine games against top 16 teams in this week's U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association coaches poll. Beginning on February 27, UNC played nine successive games against nationally-ranked teams with a win over current No. 15 Denver by a score of 18-12 score, then losses to current No. 6 Navy 9-6, current No. 14 Notre Dame 9-7, current No. 16 Hofstra 12-8 and current No. 2 Duke 12-10. Carolina broke out of its slump with a 9-5 victory over current No. 8 Cornell on March 23. In the next three games, the Tar Heels fell at current No. 9 Maryland by a 9-4 score, then lost at home to top-ranked Johns Hopkins 7-5 and then fell at No. 3 Virginia by a score of 15-9. Despite the 3-7 record, UNC has been competitive in virtually every game against this schedule. With the exception of the Navy and Virginia games, the Tar Heels have been in a situation where they trailed their opponents by only one goal in the fourth quarter of the losses to Notre Dame, Hofstra, Duke, Maryland and Johns Hopkins and had a possession with a chance to tie the match but UNC was unable to score and pull into a tie and put pressure on the opposing team in that situation. But the Tar Heels had put themselves in a position where they were in the game at that point in the final period of play. Only in the Navy game was UNC truly far behind as the closest margin in the final period against the Midshipmen was three goals and the was after the Tar Heels had scored the last three goals of the game to cut the Navy lead to 9-6.
THE SERIES WITH THE RETRIEVERS: North Carolina leads the all-time series with UMBC 16-6. Since the series resumed in 1998, the two teams have been trading home field wins so the Tar Heels have won four of the past seven meetings. UMBC has won the past three meetings in Baltimore by one goal in 1999, one goal in 2001 and two goals in 2003. The last win by UNC over the Retrievers in Baltimore came in 1987. Carolina won last year's match in Chapel Hill by a score of 17-6.
TAR HEELS AMONGST NATIONAL LEADERS IN MAN-UP OFFENSE: North Carolina ranks third in the nation this week in man-up offense. Heading into the UMBC game, the Tar Heels have scored 18 goals on 40 extra-man opportunities, a percentage of .450, which ranks them behind only Notre Dame and UMBC.
BLAIR, PROSSNER AMONGST NATIONAL SCORING LEADERS: In this week's NCAA Division I men's lacrosse statistics, junior attackman Ryan Blair (Auburn, N.Y.) is tied for 19th in the nation in points per game with 3.56 points per game. In goals per game, Tar Heel senior attackman Jed Prossner (Easton, Md.) is tied for 17th in the nation at 2.44 goals per game. Blair is ranked sixth in the nation this week in assists per game at 2.22.
PROSSNER NOW FIFTH IN CAREER GOALS: North Carolina senior attackman Jed Prossner (Easton, Md.) heads into the UMBC game in fifth place as the leading goal scorer in North Carolina men's lacrosse history. Prossner currently has 107 career goals at UNC. The all-time leader at UNC is Bert Fett who scored 128 goals from 1972-75. Prossner scored 41 goals during the 2004 season. That was the fifth most goals in a single season in Tar Heel history. The record output was 47 by Dennis Goldstein during UNC's national championship run in 1991. Prossner trails only Bert Fett (128), Mac Ford (111), John Webster (109) and Dennis Goldstein (108) in UNC career goal scoring.
McCALL & WILL PASS MILESTONES: Senior Mike McCall (Yorktown, N.Y.) has passed the 90 mark in career goals this season. In fact, McCall's team-leading 24 goals this season has pushed his career total to 93 as he moves closer to the century mark in career goals. McCall is now chasing the Top 10 list at UNC. Jason Wade currently ranks 10th in career goal scoring at UNC with 95 goals. Senior midfielder Bryant Will (Phoenix, Md.) has recorded 12 assists this season to pass the 50 mark in his career. Will now has a total of 58 assists. He is aiming for the UNC Top 10 list which currently has Matt Crofton (1997-2000) and Chase Martin (1997-2000) tied for the No. 9 spot with 63 assists apiece. Will has the most career assists among active Tar Heel players with 58. Jed Prossner has 54 career assists, Ryan Blair 50, Mike McCall 38 and Lance Zimmerman 27.
SPELLMAN NOW SECOND IN CAREER SAVES: Tar Heel senior goalkeeper Paul Spellman (Cockeysville, Md.), who has started 50 of the 51 games the Tar Heels have played since he arrived on campus in 2002 while also playing in every game the Tar Heels have played in his time on campus, heads into the UMBC game with 627 career saves. That total ranks second in Carolina history. The only player ahead of him on the chart is now Tom Sears (1980-83) with 629. Spellman had a season-high 16 saves against Navy on March 5 while allowing only nine goals in a hard-fought game against the second-ranked Midshipmen in which UNC fell short 9-6.
COACH John Haus: North Carolina head coach John Haus, a 1983 Carolina graduate, is in his fifth 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. As the head coach at Johns Hopkins his teams went 20-7 in 1999 and 2000. As the Tar Heel head coach his teams are 34-29 in four seasons. In 11 years as a collegiate head coach his teams are now 101-57. Including his time as a player, assistant coach and head coach he has been involved with teams that have a combined record of 206-92 in the collegiate ranks.
THE ALL-TIME HOME RECORD: North Carolina has a record of 210-103-2 in home games dating back to the start of the varsity program in 1949.
Players Mentioned
