University of North Carolina Athletics
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UMBC
Bitter's School Record Eight Goals Rally UNC Past UMBC
May 9, 2009 | Men's Lacrosse
May 9, 2009
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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - The sixth-ranked University of North Carolina men's lacrosse team rallied from only its second halftime deficit of the season as sophomore attackman Billy Bitter's school record-tying eight goals propelled the Tar Heels to a 15-13 win over ninth-ranked UMBC in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Fetzer Field Saturday afternoon. A crowd of 1,431 watched the game on a day when temperatures hovered around 90 degrees all afternoon.
North Carolina (12-5) advances to the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship for the 21st time in its 24 NCAA appearances. UMBC, champion of the America East Conference, saw its season end at 12-4 with the loss.
North Carolina will meet Duke next Sunday in the quarterfinals at Annapolis, Md.'s Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. The third-ranked Blue Devils (14-3) defeated 11th-ranked Navy 14-5 in the NCAA first round Saturday night at Koskinen Stadium in Durham, N.C.
Carolina and Duke will meet for the third time this season next Sunday as the Tar Heels will be seeking to end a 10-game losing streak against the Blue Devils. Duke beat the Tar Heels 12-8 in the regular-season meeting at Kenan Stadium March 14. The teams met again in the ACC Tournament championship game at Kenan Stadium April 26 with the Blue Devils holding off a late North Carolina rally to prevail 15-13.
It was a wild afternoon at Fetzer Field Saturday with Bitter and senior midfielder Shane Walterhoefer making big play after big play for UNC against a UMBC team that had a balanced scoring attack with a trio of players recording hat tricks. UMBC was as advertised with the nation's No. 1 extra-man offense and its top three scorers all playing on its first midfield line.
Bitter scored on his first eight shots on goal to tie the school record for goals in a game which he now shares with first-team All-America attackman Mac Ford and first-team All-America midfielder Jason Wade. Ford scored eight goals on April 21, 1984 against Adelphi and Wade scored eight goals against Maryland on March 23, 1996. Ironically, Bitter was denied on his ninth and final shot of the game after a UMBC double team intended to force a turnover in the final two minutes left an empty net for the sophomore from Stowe, Vt. Bitter rolled the crease on the left side but a pair of Retriever field players recovered quickly and they were able to block Bitter's final scoring attempt with 1:57 left in the game.
Had Bitter not taken that last shot he would have tied the Tar Heel record for shooting percentage in a game. That mark belongs to Wade who scored on his first eight shots against Maryland in the aforementioned 1996 game, a game the Tar Heels won 17-16. But Wade never took a ninth shot and he maintains that 100 percent shooting percentage record in Tar Heel lore.
Bitter was just one goal shy of tying the record for most goals scored in an NCAA Tournament game. Gary Gait of Syracuse scored nine goals against Navy on May 22, 1988 in an NCAA Tournament quarterfinal game at the Carrier Dome and Oliver Marti of Brown also scored nine goals in an NCAA first-round game against Loyola on May 9, 1992.
Walterhoefer was another key to the Tar Heel victory as he won 22 of 31 face-offs on the game. He was just one face-off win short of tying his own school record of 23 face-off wins set on April 12, 2008 against Ohio State. It also marked the 20th time in 56 career games in which Walterhoefer has won at least 15 face-offs in a game, meaning he has now won 15 or more in a game in 35.7 percent of his career games. His 31 face-off attempts were the second most he has taken in his career, one short of the 32 he had against Duke on May 20, 2007.
In addition to Bitter's eight goals (he added an assist for good measure for a nine-point day, the 16th time in Tar Heel history a player has had nine or more points in a match), the Tar Heels also got two goals from senior attackman Bart Wagner and single goals by freshman midfielder Jimmy Dunster, junior attackman Gavin Petracca, junior midfielder Cryder DiPietro, senior midfielder Shane Walterhoefer and senior defenseman Jack Ryan. Ryan's goal came on the first shot that Ryan has taken in his four-year career. Wagner added three assists for a five-point game while senior midfielder Bobby McAuley had two assists and single assists came from Bitter, junior midfielder Sean Burke, junior midfielder Sean Delaney, Dunster, sophomore defenseman Milton Lyles and Petracca.
UMBC had a very balanced scoring slate as Alex Hopman, Kyle Wimer and Chris Jones each had hat tricks for the Retrievers. Matt Latham had two goals while Peet Poillon and Ryan Smith each had single tallies. Poillon and Smith each had two assists for the Retrievers while Hopmann and Grimm added single assists.
UNC outshot the Retrievers 46-35 and for the 17th time in 17 games this year, UNC won the ground ball battle by a 56-37 margin. Eleven different UNC players had at least three ground balls in the game, led by Walterhoefer with eight, Bitter with six, Wagner with five and sophomore defenseman Ryan Flanagan with five.
UNC ended with a 23-9 edge at the face-off X with Walterhoefer going 22 for 31 and sophomore midfielder Michael Burns winning his only face-off. Justin Radebaugh took al 32 face-offs for UMBC, winning nine. Both teams finished with 17 turnovers and both squads cleared fairly successfully with UMBC going 20 of 24 and Carolina 19 of 22. UMBC had the only two extra-man goals of the game on its three EMO tries.
With both teams playing high-powered, explosive offensive lacrosse, both goalkeepers were tested severely through the game. Senior Jeremy Blevins, a four-year starter, had 12 saves for UMBC while freshman James Petracca had eight for UNC. Petracca made only eight saves but five of them came at the most crucial junctions of the game. With UMBC on a 5-0 scoring and trying to extend an 8-6 lead right before halftime, Petracca stopped three shots in the final 1:04 of the first half. Then, with Carolina nursing a 15-13 advantage, Petracca made stops on point-blank shots by Matt Latham with 3:37 left in the game and again with 2:40 left in the game to help the Tar Heels maintain their edge. In both cases Latham had one-on-one chances against Petracca but he was turned away both times.
Bitter's eight goals gives him 46 this season. He is only one goal short of the school record held by Dennis Goldstein, who tallied 47 in the Tar Heels' 1991 NCAA championship season when Carolina was a perfect 16-0. Bitter now has 69 points this year, the third most in a season in UNC history behind only Bruce Ledwith's 81 points in 1973 and Goldstein's 75 points in 1991.
Walterhoefer extended his own school record for face-offs won in a season as he now has 254 this campaign. He has 708 in his career, the fourth highest total in NCAA history and now just 14 face-off wins behind the No. 3 spot on the list. His 137 ground balls are the third most in a season in Carolina history, behind only the 160 picked up by Jude Collins in 1996 and the 143 Kevin Frew claimed in 2004.
It was only the second time this season that Carolina has trailed at the half and in both cases UNC has rallied to win. The Tar Heels trailed Hofstra 6-5 at the half on April 18 at Hempstead, N.Y. but outscored the Pride 8-2 in the second half to come away with a 13-8 win. UNC is 9-3 when leading at the half this year, 2-0 when trailing at the half and 1-2 when tied at the half.
On the opening possession of the game, UMBC gained an extra-man opportunity after Chris Hunt was called for a push 2:04 into the game. The Retrievers' extra-man offense, which has scored on 51 percent of its attempts this year, took advantage as Matt Latham scored off an assist by Peet Poillon with three seconds left on the penalty. On Carolina's first possession of the game, Ben Hunt fired five shots at the UMBC net, looking for the equalizer. On the fifth shot he took a hard check to his shoulder and he missed the remainder of the game, staying on the sideline with an ice bag on the shoulder. UNC coach Joe Breschi, who liberally used his bench, playing 26 players in the game, compensated for Hunt's loss by using a pair of attackmen, senior Matthias McCall and freshman Thomas Wood, in rotations in the top two midfield units.
After UMBC went offside on a clearing attempt, the Tar Heels scored just seven seconds after the restart with Bart Wagner feeding Billy Bitter for a goal at 10:45 of the quarter. UMBC won the ensuing face-off and capitalized as Kyle Wimer's unassisted goal gave the Retrievers a 2-1 lead just 39 seconds after Bitter's goal.
Neither team dented the scoreboard again for almost five full minutes but that drought ended when UNC's Cryder DiPietro drove the right alley and send a hard shot stick-side to beat Blevins with 5:52 left in the first quarter. Just over two minutes later, Wimer hit the post on a shot but Latham pounced on the ground ball right in front of the net and scored past Petracca at 3:44 to make it 3-2 in favor of the Retrievers. Carolina tied the game on its next possession as Bitter scored off an assist by Dunster with 2:45 left in the quarter. Carolina won the next face-off and in executing the clear defenseman Jack Ryan carried the ball into the box and then rocketed a shot into the upper right corner for UNC's first lead of the game. It was not only Ryan's first goal of his career but it also came on the first shot he's taken in a Carolina uniform.
The quarter ended at 4-3 with UNC outshooting the Retrievers 16-8 in the opening 15 minutes. UMBC turned that trend around quickly, doubling up Carolina 14-7 on shots in the second period and outscoring the Tar Heels 5-2 to take an 8-6 halftime lead.
Carolina started the second period well as the Heels scored in transition after Ryan Flanagan forced a turnover by Kyle Wimer. The sequence ended in a goal by Bitter, assisted by Wagner at 11:58 of the second quarter. The Tar Heels then stretched their lead to 6-3 on Bitter's fourth goal of the game with 9:01 left in the half.
The momentum swung shortly after that and UMBC held Carolina scoreless for over 11 minutes while running off six straight goals of its own to take a 9-6 lead, its largest of the game. Chris Jones started the scoring run with an unassisted goal at 7:24 of the period. The Retrievers scored again at 6:02 as Ryan Smith took an assist by Rob Grimm to score shortly after the Heels had killed off a one-minute tripping penalty against Jimmy Dunster. Petracca made a save on Latham with nine seconds left on the EMO but UNC turned the ball over, giving UMBC a second chance which it cashed in on. Forty-two seconds later, UMBC tied the game at 6-6 on a goal by Alex Hopmann, assisted by Ryan Smith. Just 54 seconds after that, UMBC regained the lead at 7-6 with an unassisted goal by Wimer and then 1:16 later it became 8-6 with Hopmann scoring off an assist by Poillon. The five-goal UMBC scoring run came in a span of just 4:14.
UMBC had three excellent opportunities to extend that lead but Petracca made three saves in the final 1:04 of the half, stopping Poillon, then Smith with 29 seconds left and Jones with two seconds to play.
Faced with its biggest halftime deficit of the season, the Tar Heels came out and dominated the third quarter, outshooting UMBC 17-5 and outscoring the Retrievers 6-3 to take a 12-11 lead into the final period.
The second half did not start auspiciously for the Heels, however, after Chris Jones scooped a ground ball on the right side of the crease in a hockey-style motion past Petracca at the 13:05 mark. Staring a three-goal deficit in the face, North Carolina responded with a four-goal run to retake the lead at 10-9. After the goal by Jones, UMBC won the next face-off but Flanagan forced a turnover and Bitter converted at the other end to make it 9-7 with 12:11 left in the quarter. It took just 14 seconds for Carolina to score again as Bobby McAuley seized the ground ball on the face-off and fed Walterhoefer for a goal at 11:57. It was Walterhoefer's second goal of the season and the seventh of his career.
On the next possession, UNC hustled to win four ground balls and the hustle paid off with the tying goal by Dunster, assisted by Bitter at 10:46. It took just 1:10 for the Tar Heels to then retake the lead as Bitter scored at 9:36 off Wagner's assist as Carolina capitalized on a failed clear by the Retrievers.
It did not take long for UMBC to score the tying goal as Jones scored unassisted at the 8:51 mark. The Retrievers then took the lead for the last time in the game at 11-10 on Wimer's unassisted goal at 5:40.
Defenseman Milton Lyles scooped the ground ball on the ensuing face-off, carried the ball into the box and earned his first career assist, feeding Gavin Petracca for the tying score just 14 seconds after UMBC had taken the lead. The Heels needed less than a minute for Bitter to score his seventh goal of the game off McAuley's second assist of the third period. The goal at 4:30 of the third period made it 12-11 Carolina, a lead UNC would not relinquish.
On the first possession of the fourth quarter, James Petracca saved a shot by UMBC's Ryan Smith at 13:35 and the Heels scored quickly in transition just 12 seconds later as Wagner took an assist by Gavin Petracca and scored past Blevins to make it 13-11. Less than a minute later, Ryan Flanagan was flagged for an illegal body check and UMBC cashed in with its second extra-man goal of the game as Poillon scored from Hopmann with 12:12 to play.
Neither team scored for the next four minutes before Wagner got his second goal of the fourth quarter off a brilliant assist by Sean Burke with 7:59 to play. Burke sent a 20-yard pass through the defense to Wagner on the left side of the crease for the put away. Two possessions later, after Andrew Pyke forced a UMBC turnover, Sean Delaney fed Bitter coming out of the substitution box and Bitter drove to the goal to score his eighth goal of the game with 5:58 to play.
UMBC ended the scoring on Hopmann's third goal of the game off an assist by Smith at 4:19. Petracca then made the two aforementioned key saves on the next two UMBC possessions before Bitter missed the empty net at 1:57. With 1:32 to play, Michael Jarvis caused a turnover by Wimer and the Heels cleared the ball successfully before calling timeout with 1:10 to play. With 44 seconds left, the Retrievers were assessed two different penalties but UNC made no effort to score, passing the ball around the box to kill off the remaining time and in the process improving to 14-3 all-time in NCAA Tournament games in Chapel Hill.
