University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Detroit Mercy
UNC Men's Lacrosse Team Off To Best Start Since 2002
March 3, 2009 | Men's Lacrosse
March 3, 2009
Complete Results |
Photo Gallery 
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - In a game filled with firsts and career highs, the third-ranked North Carolina men's lacrosse team defeated first-year varsity program Detroit Mercy 19-4 Tuesday afternoon in a game that was moved to the Henry Stadium turf after a Monday snowstorm in Chapel Hill. It was the first game against a Top 5-ranked team for the Titans while UNC starts the season 6-0 for the first time since 2002.
Junior attackman Joe Howard and senior attackman Matthias McCall each had a career-high four points in the game while junior midfielder Tommy D'Alessandro, freshman midfielder Chris Layne and freshman midfielder Logan Corey all had their first career points. Howard led the Tar Heels with a career-high three goals while McCall, junior attackman Gavin Petracca, senior attackman Bart Wagner, junior midfielder Cryder DiPietro and freshman midfielder Jimmy Dunster all had two goals. Junior midfielder Sean Burke, McCall, Petracca, Corey and junior attackman Kevin Federico all had two assists for Coach Joe Breschi's squad.
Also seeing his first career action was sophomore goalkeeper Jamie Locke who played the last 18:52 of the match and made six saves while allowing only two goals, one of them when the Tar Heels were a man-down. Senior Grant Zimmerman started in goal and made seven saves while allowing only two goals in 41:08.
Detroit's starting goalkeeper Vince Diana had a solid game for the Titans as he made 17 saves and also scooped up four ground balls. Kevin Demorest had two goals to lead the Titans offensively. Midfielder Matt Gregson had an excellent day, winning all seven of his face-off attempts and earning a game-high eight ground balls.
Shane Walterhoefer led UNC's 62-ground ball effort with six. No other UNC player had more than four but 29 different Tar Heel players had at least one ground ball. Carolina played all 36 players who were dressed out for the game. Sophomore defenseman Ryan Flanagan, sophomore short-stick defensive midfielder Chris Hunt and freshman short-stick defensive midfielder Chris Layne each had four ground balls. Junior defenseman Chris Cortina put in a stellar effort as he won four of five face-offs with his long stick and scooped up a career-high three ground balls.
Detroit Mercy kept the Tar Heels in check for most of the first quarter after early goals by Dunster and DiPietro put the Heels up 2-0. When Michael Schumacher scored with 38 seconds left in the opening quarter, the Titans were behind only 2-1. But after a face-off win by Walterhoefer, Bart Wagner scored off an assist by Gavin Petracca with 19 seconds left in the quarter and that started a run of six straight goals by the Tar Heels.
Petracca scored back-to-back goals to open the second quarter and then he assisted on a tally by Dunster with 10:02 left in the first half to make it 6-1. Sophomore attackman Billy Bitter and Wagner followed with unassisted goals to make it 8-1 with a little over eight minutes left in the period.
After neither team scored for more than five minutes, Detroit Mercy broke the scoring drought as Kevin Demorest scored off an assist by Vince Wigdahl with 2:41 left before the half. The Tar Heels scored the next seven goals as they built a 15-2 lead with a little less than four minutes left in the third quarter.
Two goals in the last minute of the first half made the score 10-2 at the half in favor of Carolina. Matthias McCall scored off an assist by Bart Wagner 40 seconds before halftime and just 16 seconds later sophomore short-stick defensive midfielder Michael Burns scored his second career goal.
Breschi emptied his bench at halftime and the reserves came through with a 9-2 scoring margin in the second 30 minutes of play. UNC ran off the first five goals of the third quarter. Sophomore midfielder Colin Sherwood scored the first goal of his career on an extra-man situation 1:32 into the second half off the first career assist by Joe Howard. DePietro followed with a goal assisted by McCall and then Howard started his hat trick at 11:09 of the quarter off an assist by freshman midfielder Logan Corey, his first career point. The Chapel Hill-to-Chapel Hill connection on that goal put the Heels ahead 13-2.
The next two goals came off assists by Federico as he fed Chris Layne for the Philadelphia native's first Tar Heel goal at 5:24 of the quarter and then McCall was the recipient of Federico's largesse with 3:52 remaining.
The Titans bounced back with successive goals to shave the margin to 15-4. Pat O'Shea scored an extra-man goal with 1:48 left in the third quarter and then Demorest scored his second goal with 10:42 remaining in the game.
UNC ended the game on a 4-0 run. Federico scored an unassisted goal with 9:50 left and Howard and Corey hooked up on their second goal-and-assist combination of the contest 52 seconds afterwards.
Tommy D'Alessandro scored his first career goal on a fast break situation with 7:21 left before the final horn. The final score of the contest finished off Howard's hat trick as he took an assist from McCall and tallied UNC's third extra-man goal of the game with just 1:45 to play.
The Tar Heels outshot the Titans 71-24 in the game, including a 24-2 margin in the second period when the Heels outscored Detroit 7-1. The game was played end-to-end with both teams preferring a fast-break game. The pace led to a lot of shots, a plethora of ground balls (62-42 for UNC), a bevy of turnovers (37 for Detroit, 27 for Carolina) and a very effective riding game by Carolina which forced 15 failed clears by the Titans.
Next up for the Tar Heels is their first visit to South Bend, Ind. since 2006 as UNC plays seventh-ranked Notre Dame Sunday at 1 p.m.
