University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Duke
Tar Heels Suffer First Loss Of Season At Hands Of Top-Ranked Duke
March 15, 2008 | Men's Lacrosse
March 15, 2008
DURHAM, N.C. - Senior-laden Duke, the nation's No. 1-ranked men's lacrosse team, used its experience edge to good advantage Saturday as the Blue Devils defeated the North Carolina Tar Heels 19-9 before 4,008 fans at Koskinen Stadium. The Blue Devils broke open a close game with six goals in a span of less than 10 minutes in the second quarter to hand the Tar Heels their first loss of the season.
In its next-to-last true road game of the season, UNC was fairly even statistically with the Blue Devils except on the final scoreboard. Max Quinzani led the Blue Devils with six goals while Zack Greer had five goals and three assists for Duke and Ned Crotty had three goals. North Carolina is now 5-1 on the season and Duke is 7-0.
With the win Duke earned one team point in the 2007-08 Carlyle Cup standings. The Carlyle Cup is awarded to the school which each year performs the best overall in head-to-head competition. UNC has won three times, Duke three times and there has been one tie. It is based on a 26-point formula with two points each for men's and women's basketball and football and one point for the 20 other sports. UNC leads the current standings 14-4 with eight points remaining to be determined.
For Carolina, junior midfielder Ben Hunt had three goals and one assist while junior attackman Bart Wagner had two goals and sophomore midfielder Cryder DiPietro had a goal and an assist. Freshman attackman Billy Bitter had three goals.
Duke got out to a 4-1 lead early in the second quarter when a man-up goal by Wagner, assisted by Hunt, cut the lead to 4-2 with 13:46 left in the half. Duke then ran off six successive goals from the 12:27 mark to the 3:09 mark, including two by Greer and two by Quinzani. Carolina scored the last two goals of the half, tallies by Ben Hunt assisted by Billy Bitter and by Nick Tintle assisted by Rob Driscoll, to cut the halftime deficit to 10-4.
Duke scored seven of the first eight goals of the second half to take its biggest lead at 17-5 with 10:40 left in the match. Fourth-quarter goals by junior Ben Hunt, junior Michael B. Burns, junior Matthias McCall and sophomore Cryder DiPietro cut the final margin to 19-9.
Duke outshot the Tar Heels 47-46 and won the ground ball battle 44-40. UNC dominated in the face-off circle by winning 21 of 32 draws. Freshman Michael J. Burns was 12 of 18 in the face-off circle while junior Shane Walterhoefer, playing for the first time since March 2, won eight of his 12 face-off attempts.
UNC scored five extra-man goals, three by Hunt, in eight attempts. Duke had four extra-man goals.
The Tar Heels will host Marist Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Fetzer Field in their next game. Next Saturday, the tar Heels will play host to ACC rival Maryland at 6 p.m. at Fetzer Field in a game that will be nationally televised live on ESPNU.
