University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Johns Hopkins
Carolina Shocks The Hop 13-10 With Fourth Quarter Scoring Spree
March 31, 2007 | Men's Lacrosse
March 31, 2007
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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Five different Tar Heel midfielders scored two goals apiece, freshman attackman Gavin Petracca notched three assists and sophomore goalkeeper Grant Zimmerman had a career high 15 saves and career high eight ground balls as the 15th-ranked University of North Carolina men's lacrosse team beat No. 5 -ranked Johns Hopkins for the first time since 1994 with a 13-10 come-from-behind victory Saturday afternoon before 3,582 fans at Kenan Stadium. The game was played before the largest home crowd for a Tar Heel lacrosse match since 2002.
In many respects the game was a breakthrough win for a UNC program that has played in tough luck since reaching the NCAA quarterfinals in 2004. Since losing to Hopkins in the '04 quarters, UNC has a record of 16-21 but the Tar Heel victory Saturday was a resume builder as the 2007 team seeks a return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years.
The win was Carolina's first over a team ranked in the Top 10 since a 9-5 win over a 10th-ranked Cornell team on March 23, 2005 and ended the previously hard luck Tar Heels' 13-game losing streak against Top 10 teams. Even more significantly it ended a two-game losing streak for the Heels this season and improved their record to 7-3 going into a game against defending national champion Virginia next Saturday at 7 p.m. in Charlottesville, Va.
The last time UNC beat a team ranked as high as No. 5 in the country came in 2004 when the Tar Heels whipped Duke 10-9 in overtime at Durham, N.C. The last time the Heels achieved a win against a team ranked higher than No. 5 came in 2003 when Carolina won a 10-6 match at No. 2-rated Maryland.
Johns Hopkins had held serve against the Tar Heels 13 straight times but Saturday proved to be a different story as the Tar Heels dominated the ground ball battle, the face-off circle and the goalie play to pull off its biggest win in many years. Carolina's last win over the Blue Jays came on April 2, 1994 when the Tar Heels beat Hopkins 11-9 at Homewood Field in Baltimore. Ironically, UNC head coach John Haus was in his last year as an assistant coach at Hopkins that year before he took over the head coaching job at Washington College a year later. Haus has gone on to head coaching jobs at both Hopkins and Carolina since then.
Saturday's game proved the mettle of this year's Tar Heel team as Carolina won 16 of 25 face-offs with sophomore Shane Walterhoefer winning 15 of his 23 attempts, the sixth time this year he has won at least 15 face-offs in a match. UNC also won the ground ball battle with 42 compared to 31 for the Blue Jays. Goalie Grant Zimmerman led the Tar Heels in ground balls with a career-high eight while defense middie Ben Staines and Walterhoefer each picked up six. The six ground balls were a career high for Staines, a senior short stick defensive middie.
Offensively, the Tar Heels featured balanced scoring production which saw five different UNC players, none of whom were in the starting lineup, score two goals apiece. Junior midfielder Brian Connors, sophomore midfielder Ben Hunt, junior midfielder Nick Tintle, junior midfielder Rob Driscoll and freshman midfielder Sean Burke each had two goals as the Tar Heel midfield stepped up and scored 10 of Carolina's 13 goals. Tintle, Driscoll and Burke each matched their career highs for goals in a game and the match marked the first time Connors has scored twice in a game and his three points were also a career high. Burke had three points matching his career high of three set at Navy earlier in the year.
Carolina's other goals came from defenseman Tim Kaiser, his second goal of the campaign, while attackmen Sean Delaney and Michael Burns each had a single goal. For the third time in his freshman season, Gavin Petracca had three assists in a game while six other Tar Heels had single assists.
The Blue Jays were led by a stellar performance by senior attackman Jake Byrne who had four goals. Freshman midfielder Michael Kimmel had two goals for the Blue Jays, who fell to 4-3 overall with the loss, dropping back-to-back games for the first time in seven years. Paul Rabil had a goal and two assists for Hopkins. Austin Walker, Brian Christopher and Tom Duerr each had a goal apiece for the Blue Jays. Walker also had an assist and Steven Boyle had a pair of assists for JHU.
In the goal, Tar Heel sophomore Grant Zimmerman recorded 15 stops. That was a career best total, exceeding the 13 he had against Dartmouth earlier this season. His eight ground balls were also a career high, besting the total of seven he had against Duke earlier in the season. Zimmerman had eight of his 15 saves in the first quarter when UNC was outshot by the Blue Jays 12-6 but trailed only 2-0. Zimmerman had six saves in the second half when the Tar Heels outscored the Blue Jays 7-4, rallying for the 13-10 triumph.
For Hopkins, senior Jesse Schwartzman made eight saves while allowing 13 goals in 59:32 of play. He had to leave the game with 28 seconds remaining after committing a slashing penalty.
Hopkins jumped on top 3-0 by early in the second quarter with two of the goals by Byrne, the second with 13:07 left in the first half. But the Heels rallied quickly. Hopkins had its vaunted passing game going early as the first three goals were all assisted. Byrne scored from Walker with 1:31 left in the first quarter and Kimmel tallied an extra-man goal with 12 seconds remaining in the quarter, assisted by Boyle. That goal came after UNC's David Ryan was sent off for holding with 22 seconds left in the period. The Blue Jays made the score 3-0 at 1:53 into the second quarter as Byrne took a feed from Paul Rabil for his second goal of the game.
With 12:58 left in the second quarter, Hopkins' Dave Spaulding was sent off for an illegal body check as the team's fought for the face-off after Byrne's goal. The Tar Heels took advantage with an extra-man goal by Nick Tintle off an assist by Gavin Petracca 25 seconds into the extra-man. That goal got the Tar Heels on the scoreboard. At the 8:40 mark of the second quarter, defenseman Brian Burke cleared the ball on the left side of the field and hit his younger brother Sean Burke in full stride behind the Blue Jays defense. The younger Burke drove to the cage and scored untouched. Then at 7:16, Brian Connors got the equalizer on a hard shot into the lower right of the cage.
Connors' goal proved to be the first in a run of four goals in 40 seconds as the teams traded scores in extremely rapid fashion.
Hopkins took the lead just eight seconds after Connors' goal as the Tar Heels claimed the face-off but a pass by Shane Walterhoefer intended for Grant Zimmerman was intercepted by Tom Duerr who scored into an empty net at 7:08 of the period. Just 14 seconds later, Tim Kaiser tied the game at 4-4 after claiming the ground ball on the ensuing face-off and speeding down the field to score on a low shot past Schwartzman. Hopkins would regain the lead, however, at 5-4 when Paul Rabil scored an unassisted goal at the 6:36 mark, ending the flurry of four goals by the two teams in 40 seconds.
Carolina would outscore the Blue Jays 2-1 the remainder of the half as Rob Driscoll took a pass from Petracca and slotted one past Schwartzman from a tough angle at 4:49. Hopkins came back to take the lead on an unassisted Brian Christopher goal 3:25 before the half but Ben Hunt tied the game again 1:15 before halftime via an assist by freshman attackman Sean Delaney.
Both Carolina and Hopkins had to kill off extra-man chances for the other team before North Carolina took its first lead of the game with 8:12 left in the third quarter as Nick Tintle popped open on the crease on another extra-man opportunity, took a pass from Gavin Petracca and finished the scoring chance. The score came 28 seconds after Brian Christopher had been sent off the field for a slash. UNC had a chance to take a two goal lead just over a minute later but Schwartzman denied Michael Burns from point-blank range.
Suddenly, the momentum swung back to Hopkins with three goals in less than four minutes -- by Michael Kimmel, Austin Walker and Jake Byrne -- giving the Blue Jays a 9-7 lead with 2:41 to play in the third quarter. Boyle had an assist on the goal by Kimmel while Peyser assisted the goal by Byrne, his third of the match.
Despite the two-goal deficit, it was Carolina which made the big plays down the stretch and in the final 17 minutes of the game the Heels outscored the Blue Jays 5-1 to rally for the 13-10 win.
UNC quickly tied the game before the end of the third quarter, getting two goals in less than a minute. Rob Driscoll drove the left side and beat Schwartzman with a virtually unstoppable shot with 1:54 to play and just 48 seconds later it was a freshman to freshman Sean combination which tied the score at 9-9 as Burke fed Delaney for the equalizer.
In the fourth quarter, the game turned in favor of the Heels with UNC outshooting Hopkins 10-5, winning the ground balls 10-7 and claiming five of the six face-offs. Zimmerman came up with three saves in the final quarter while allowing only one Hopkins score while UNC scored four goals in the period out of their five shot on goal opportunities.
Brian Connors took a pass from Bart Wagner and finished spectacularly with a behind-the-back score at 14:11 to make it 10-9 Carolina. Hopkins answered that goal with 12:10 to play as Byrne scored his fourth goal of the game off Paul Rabil's assist. The goal came after a failed clear by the Tar Heels as Zimmerman's clearing pass went awry and the Blue Jays capitalized just seconds later.
As the clocked ticked off the final 10 minutes, UNC benefited from an unsettled situation after a near turnover to take the lead 11-10 with 7:11 to play. Michael Burns' cross crease pass found no one but Gavin Petracca saved the loose ball on the sideline and while being harassed by two Hopkins' defensemen found Brian Connors on the right side of the box. Connors fed Burns 10 yards out front and Burns' hard bounce shot found the back of the net.
Just 1:11 later, Sean Burke came up big again for the Heels as he literally dodged virtually the entire Blue Jay defense before scoring from just to the right of the crease with six minutes even to play. Burke's drive to the goal energized the crowd and he got Schwartzman to commit before dumping the ball into the left side of the cage.
Hopkins turned up the defensive pressure and forced three Tar Heel turnovers between the 3:22 and the 1:17 marks on the clock. But UNC held tough on the defensive end, blocking a Kevin Huntley shot with 5:08 left and then forcing two turnovers and two failed clears, the latter with 1:04 left that gave possession back to UNC.
The Tar Heels held the ball and with two penalty flags already on the turf against the Blue Jays for slashing calls against Schwartzman and Sam Devore, it was Ben Hunt who took a pass from Nick Tintle and scored from the outside into an empty net with 28 seconds to play to clinch the win.
The Tar Heels won the following face-off and with a two-man advantage just held the ball for the final 28 seconds as the partisan UNC crowd stood en masse to celebrate the win.
