North Carolina
Notre Dame
North Carolina's Rally Falls Short Against No. 12 Notre Dame
March 11, 2006 | Men's Lacrosse
March 11, 2006
SOUTH BEND, IND. - North Carolina's men's lacrosse team staged a spirited rally from a five-goal deficit in the third quarter but fell short against No. 12-ranked Notre Dame, losing to the Fighting Irish 9-7 at Edward W. "Moose" Krause Stadium. The Tar Heels lost their fourth successive game and are now 2-4 on the season. Notre Dame improved to 2-1 on the season.
UNC was led offensively by freshman attackman Bart Wagner who had two goals and two assists. Senior attackman Sean Link had two goals, doubling his career total in the game, while senior attackman Ryan Blair had a goal and an assist.
Brian Hubschmann, Matt Karweck and Matt Ryan had two goals each for Notre Dame. Pat Walsh had a goal and and five assists and was the key in the Notre Dame win. Hubschmann had two assists for Notre Dame and Karweck added an assist as UNC fell to the Fighting Irish for the second straight year.
Notre Dame led 3-1 at the end of the first quarter. Pat Walsh opened the scoring in the game for Notre Dame with 8:24 left in the opening quarter off a feed from Brian Hubschmann. The Tar Heels responed with 6:24 left in the first quarter as Ryan Blair scored his seventh goal of the season with an assist by Michael Burns. The Fighting Irish scored the last two goals of the first quarter as Matt Ryan and Matt Karweck tallied in the final 4:02 of the period to take a 3-1 lead over UNC.
Carolina tied the score by tallying the first two goals of the second quarter. Bart Wagner's fifth goal off an assist by Blair at the 11:00 mark made it 3-2. Carolina then tied the score at 3-3 as Sean Link scored his second of the season and third of his career at 9:37.
The Fighting Irish carried the play the rest of the period, scoring three goals in the final 8:08. Brian Hubschmann put the Irish up 4-3 at 8:08. Pat Walsh then assisted on Notre Dame's final two goals of the half as Matt Karweck scored his second goal of the half at 5:53 and then Bill Liva stuck a high hard shot into the upper right with 10 seconds left in the half.
Notre Dame extened its lead to 8-3 by scoring the opening two goals of the second half. Ryan Hoff and Hubschmann tallied back-to-back goals to make it a five goal lead with four minutes gone in the second half.
The Tar Heels staged a furious rally however to cut the Notre Dame lead to a single goal with 4:09 left in the game. The Carolina rally started with an unassisted goal by Nick Tintle at 2:49 of the third quarter. Bart Wagner then scored 1:04 later to make it 8-5.
When Sean Link scored off Bart Wagner's assist at 8:38 it was 8-6. UNC then got an extra-man goal by Ryan Walterhoefer off an assist by Bart Wagner at 4:07.
Notre Dame won the ensuing face-off and got an insurance goal with 2:51 to play as Ryan scored from Karweck. The Fighting Irish won the following face-off and killed most of the clock. UNC got the ball back with exactly a minute to play but was unable to score.
UNC outshot the Fighting Irish 25-20 and the Tar Heels won the ground ball battle 44-35. Each team won 10 face-offs. Carolina was hurt by six failed clears in the match.
Both goalkeepers made as many saves as they allowed goals. Grant Zimmerman had nine saves for UNC and Joey Kemp had nine saves for the Fighting Irish.
UNC will look to break its losing streak Wednesday when the Tar Heels travel to Hempstead, N.Y. to take on 15th-ranked Hofstra at Hofstra Stadium.
