University of North Carolina Athletics
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No. 8 Navy Downs No. 10 North Carolina In Men's Lacrosse
March 2, 2007 | Men's Lacrosse
March 2, 2007
ANNAPOLIS, MD. - Navy led from start to finish Friday night as the Midshipmen defeated North Carolina 19-8 in men's lacrosse action at Navy Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis, Md., berfore 5,125 fans. The win improved the Midshipmen to 3-0 on the season while the Tar Heels lost their first game of the season after opening the campaign with three wins for the first time since 2002.
Nick Mirabito and Ian Dingman each had three goals for the Midshipmen while Ben Hunt led the Tar Heels with three goals and Sean Burke had two goals and two assists.
With the aid of a pair of man-up goals, the Midshipmen built a 5-3 lead at the end of the first quarter. Tommy Wallin opened the scoring for Navy at 9:52 followed just 47 seconds later by an extra-man goal by Nick Mirabito.
Carolina defenseman Tim Kaiser cleared the ball on his own and went down and scored past Colin Finnegan with 8:15 left in the opening period to get the Tar Heels on the board. The two teams combined to put five scores on the board in the last 3:51 of the first quarter with three different Navy players scoring and Ben Hunt and Brian Connors getting goals for the Tar Heels.
Navy broke the game open in the second quarter with a 5-2 scoring advantage over the Heels. Ben Hunt had both Carolina goals for the Carolina Blue and White in the second quarter and the second of those, off an assist by Sean Burke, with 9:10 left in the first half pulled the Heels within 7-5.
But the Mids ended the second quarter on a 3-0 scoring run including back-to-back goals by Tim Paul going into intermission running the margin to 10-5.
Navy dominated the statistics in the first half of play as the Mids won 12 of 16 face-offs, outshot the Heels 27-13 and won the ground ball battle 23-11. UNC's Grant Zimmerman had nine saves in the first half for UNC while Colin Finnegan had four saves for Navy.
The Midshipmen extended their lead to 15-6 by the end of the third quarter. Nick Mirabito and Ian Dingman each had two goals in the third quarter for the Mids while sophomore attackman Bart Wagner had the sole goal in the third quarter for the Tar Heels. Colin Finnegan came up big for the Mids in the third quarter with six saves on 16 Tar Heel shots.
The Midshipmen extended the lead to 18-6 in the fourth quarter before the Tar Heels scored two of the last three goals of the game. Patrick Moran had two goals for Navy in the fourth quarter while Sean Burke scored twice in the period for UNC.
Navy finished with a 42-40 edge in shots, a 41-29 edge in ground balls and a 20-10 edge in face-offs. Both teams were credited with 14 saves.
The Tar Heels return to the lacrosse field on Wednesday at 7 p.m. to meet Bellarmine at Fetzer Field.
