University of North Carolina Athletics
Carolina Welcomes Navy To Fetzer Field For NCAA First-Round Match
May 10, 2007 | Men's Lacrosse
May 10, 2007
Tar Heel Men's Lacrosse Team Returns To NCAA Tournament for only third time in the past 11 years: The North Carolina men's lacrosse program is back in a position where it has a chance to win a national championship and the news could not come too soon to Coach John Haus and his team. Last Sunday, the Tar Heels were picked for the 16-team field which will compete in the 2007 NCAA Division I Championship over the next three weekends. The bid was Carolina's first since 2004 when the Tar Heels were seeded No. 8 with a 9-4 record. That season Carolina beat Ohio State 13-6 in the first round but was routed 15-9 by top-seeded John Hopkins in the quarterfinals. In fact, UNC has only made three tournament appeances over the past 11 years. Carolina was also in the field in 1998 when the Tar Heels snuck in with a 7-7 record and lost to Duke in the first round of what was then a 12-team tournament. Prior to 1997, UNC had made the tournament field 17 straight years from 1980-97. Carolina's only opening-game exits in those 17 years came in 1988, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Somewhat surprisingly, the Tar Heels earned a home game and a No. 8 seed in the tournament despite lower rankings in both major polls than Navy and Princeton, two teams both sent on the road. Carolina is ranked ninth by the USILA coaches and 10th by Inside Lacrosse and along with Albany became the two lower-ranked teams that bumped Princeton and Navy from seeded positions. Navy, Carolina's first-round opponent, Navy, is ranked No. 8 in both major polls, but the Midshipmen were one of the eight unseeded teams to be chosen for the tournament. Game time is 5:05 p.m. Saturday at Fetzer Field on the Carolina campus. Gates will open at 3:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for children and senior citizens. The game will be televised live nationally by ESPNU with Dave Cohen doing the play by play and Mark Dixon handling the color commentary. WNAV AM will broadcast the game on radio. UNC Athletic Communications will provide live stats on the internet via Gametracker. The link for live stats will be available on TarHeelBlue.com. North Carolina, the No. 8 seed, is 9-5 overall and earned an at-large invittation to the tournament. Navy stands 11-3 and earned an automatic bid as the champion of the Patriot League Tournament. The winner of Saturday's first round showdown will advance to the NCAA quarterfinals at Annapolis, Md. on May 20. Navy will host a quarterfinal doubleheader that day and one game will feature the winner of No. 1 Duke versus Providence against the winner of No. 8 North Carolina versus Navy. The other game at Navy includes #2 Virginia/Delaware vs. #7 Maryland/UMBC.
Tar Heels Show Five-Game Improvement So Far in 2007: Heading into the NCAA Tournament, the North Carolina Tar Heels rank as the third most improved team in NCAA men's lacrosse in 2007. The Tar Heels have shown a plus five improvement in their record, going from 4-10 in 2006 to 9-5 in 2007. Holy Cross ranks first with a +6, followed by Albany at +5.5. North Carolina joins Drexel and Siena with +5 improvements. The remainder of the Top 10 teams include Brown, Bucknell, Duke, Cornell, Rutgers and Villanova.
North Carolina in One-Goal Games in 2007: North Carolina has played the second fewest one-goal games among the NCAA's 56 Division I teams in 2007. The Tar Heels played only one game decided by one goal and that was in a 10-9 overtime loss at defending NCAA champion Virginia. Only Wagner played no games decided by a single goal. Other teams other than UNC which played a single one-goal game included Colgate, Air Force, Hartford, Lafayette and Notre Dame. Navy played three one-goal games, going 0-3 including an overtime loss to Maryland. Hofstra played the most one-goal games, going 1-7 in eight such contests.
Carolina Reaches The Nine-Win Plateau: With a 15-5 win over Providence on April 21, 2007, the North Carolina men's lacrosse team improved to 9-4 on the season. This marks only the second time since the 1996 season that Carolina has reached the nine-victory standard in a season. The other season was 2004 when Carolina finished 10-5 and reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. The 2007 and 2004 teams are the only Carolina teams since 1996 to win at least nine games in a season. That 1996 team finished 12-5. Since then UNC was 6-7 in 1997, 7-8 in 1998, 6-9 in 1999, 8-6 in 2000, 6-6 in 2001, 8-5 in 2002, 7-6 in 2003, 10-5 in 2004, 5-8 in 2005, 4-10 in 2006 and 9-5 so far in 2007.
North Carolina Matches 2005 and 2006 Win Totals Combined: The win over Providence on April 21 gave this Carolina team as many wins as the Tar Heels notched in the previous two seasons combined. North Carolina enters the 2007 NCAA Tournament with a 9-5 record. Those nine wins match the totals of 2005 and 2006 when Carolina had five and four victories, respectively.
Carolina's Record in the NCAA Tournament: North Carolina has an all-time record of 24-17 in 21 NCAA Tournament appearances. The Tar Heels first made the tournament field in back to back years in 1976 and 1977 and then Carolina went to the Dance for 17 straight seasons from 1980-96. Carolina's NCAA bids since then came in 1998, 2004 and 2007. Fifteen of the 41 NCAA Tournament games have been played in Chapel Hill and UNC has a record of 13-2 in those, including a mark of 9-1 in games played at Fetzer Field. The other five games were played at either Kenan Stadium (2-1), Finley Field (1-0) or Navy Field (1-0).
Carolina Earns First NCAA Nod Since 2004: Ranked No. 9 and 10 nationally by the USILA and Inside Lacrosse and sporting a 9-5 record, North Carolina has earned a bid for the 2007 NCAA Tournament. With a solid record and one of the nation's strongest strengths of schedule, the Heels merited a spot in the 16-team NCAA field which was announced May 6. Carolina also gained a home field advantage in the first round as the No. 8 seed. This UNC team is only the third team since 1996 to make the NCAA Tournament. Carolina played in 17 straight NCAA Tournaments from 1980 through 1996. Since then, UNC's only NCAA appearances have come in 1998 and 2004 and now this season. In 21 NCAA Tournament appearances, the Tar Heels have an all-time record of 24-17. Carolina won NCAA championships in 1981, 1982, 1986 and 1991. UNC's last Final Four appearance came in 1993. Carolina ranks sixth in the history of the NCAA Tournament in terms of total appearances with 22. The schools with more bids to the tournament are Johns Hopkins with 36, Virginia with 30, Maryland with 30, Syracuse with 26 and Navy with 24.
The Tar Heels Versus Navy: Navy leads the all-time series against North Carolina 11-10. Navy has won five matches in a row against Carolina to take the lead in the series. Each of the past three meetings have resulted in lopsided margins in favor of Navy. Navy beat Carolina 9-6 at Annapolis in 2005, 11-3 at Chapel Hill in 2006 and 19-8 at Annapolis earlier this season. From 2000 to 2004, the teams played five successive games decided by one goal. Four of those five games went to overtime including an NCAA record six-overtime game in 2002 and a four-overtime game in 2003. UNC is 7-4 against the Midshipmen in Chapel Hill and 3-7 against the Midshipmen in Annapolis.
