University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Lehigh
UNC Offense Explodes In 17-5 Win Over Lehigh
February 20, 2010 | Men's Lacrosse
Feb. 20, 2010
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - The North Carolina men's lacrosse team saw its offense take a huge step forward Saturday afternoon as the fourth-ranked Tar Heels beat Lehigh 17-5 at Fetzer Field before a crowd of 752 on a sunny, chilly day in Chapel Hill. UNC attackmen Billy Bitter, Gavin Petracca and Thomas Wood combined to produce 14 of UNC's 28 points on the day and sophomore midfielder Jimmy Dunster had career highs for goals and points in a game with three and four, respectively.
With the win, the Tar Heels improve to 3-0 on the season heading into their nationally televised game at Navy next Thursday against the Midshipmen (1-1), who fell to Loyola at home in overtime Saturday 8-7. The UNC-Navy game will be telecast live on CBS College Sports Television.
Carolina put 17 goals on the scoreboard against the Mountain Hawks (1-1), one more than UNC had scored in its first two games combined against Jacksonville (11-5) and Bryant (5-4). The 17 goals were the most in a game by the Tar Heels since March 3, 2009 when Carolina defeated Detroit Mercy 19-4 at Henry Stadium.
Meanwhile, Carolina held its third successive opponent to five goals or less. The last time Carolina held three successive foes to five goals or less in a game was March 2-9, 1991 when UNC beat Radford 29-4, Penn State 15-3 and Syracuse 10-3 to open the season en route to the 1991 NCAA championship and the school's third perfect season in history,
Junior attackman Billy Bitter had two goals and four assists to lead the Tar Heels in points with six. The four assists by Bitter matched his career high. Sophomore attackman Thomas Wood had a career-high five points on two goals and a career-best three assists. Petracca, seeing his first significant action after returning from off-season surgery, had three goals on the day, including back-to-back tallies in the early minutes of the second quarter when the Tar Heels broke the game open after being tied 2-2 at the end of the first quarter.
Sophomore midfielder Tyler Morton had the first two goals of his UNC career and senior midfielder Sean DeLaney also added a pair of goals. Single goals for UNC were scored by freshman attackman Marcus Holman, junior midfielder Chris Hunt and sophomore midfielder Chris Layne while senior midfielder Cryder DiPietro added two assists for UNC.
Adam Johnston led the Lehigh scoring with a pair of goals while Dante Fantoni, Alex Drake and Roman Lao-Gosney each had a goal and an assist.
UNC outshot the Mountain Hawks 45-17 for the game and limited Lehigh to five shots in the first half. Carolina also dominated the ground ball category, winning 48 to Lehigh's 29. Defenseman Charlie McComas led the Tar Heels in ground balls with eight, matching his career best set against Jacksonville February 6, while goalkeeper Chris Madalon had six ground balls and Thomas Wood had a career high five.
UNC face-off man Michael Burns, back after missing the Bryant game with an injury, won nine of 16 face-offs and had three ground balls and two caused turnovers. Sophomore Mark Staines won four of his six face-off attempts for UNC. The Tar Heels caused 18 turnovers and Lehigh had 29 turnovers overall, including 11 unforced miscues. Senior defenseman Michael Jarvis led the Tar Heels in caused turnovers with three.
UNC jumped out to a 2-0 lead just 1:16 into the game as Billy Bitter dished out assists on goals by midfielders Chris Hunt and Tyler Morton, the latter the first tally of his career, at 13:54 and 13:44 of the first quarter. The goal by Hunt was UNC's only extra-man tally of the contest. The Tar Heels then went into a scoring drought over the next 14 plus minutes and Lehigh came back to tie the score at the end of the first quarter. Johnston scored for Lehigh at 8:49 of the quarter and then Fantoni scored for the Mountain Hawks 1:16 before the end of the quarter to tie the score at two all.
The Tar Heels than broke the game open with four goals in the opening five minutes of the second quarter. Jimmy Dunster started the scoring run 57 seconds into the quarter on an unassisted goal which he blistered past Lehigh goalie Dan Carr while being unmarked eight yards in front of the goal. UNC followed with goals by Tyler Morton at 13:22, Gavin Petracca assisted by Sean Jackson at 12:46 and a second straight Petrracca tally, assisted by Bitter at the 10:23 mark. Sean DeLaney ended the 5-0 scoring run for UNC with 8:48 left in the quarter. At that time, the UNC lead stood at five and Lehigh would never get closer than four goals after that.
Lehigh scored two of the next three goals to cut the lead to 8-4 as Roman Lao-Gosney scored at 7:41 with that goal answered 1:07 later by UNC's Billy Bitter off an assist by Thomas Wood. Lehigh came back with a man-up goal at 4:10 of the quarter as Alex Drake scored off an assist by Lao-Gosney. Bitter gave the Tar Heels a big boost with a goal just seven seconds before halftime after UNC took a timeout with 21 seconds left in the half to set up a play for its All-America.
itter's goal gave the Tar Heels a 9-4 lead seven seconds before intermission and that goal started a long scoring run of seven straight UNC tallies that eventually put the Heels up by a 15-4 edge with 11:24 to play in the game. Carolina outscored the Mountain Hawks 5-0 in the third quarter with five different players -- Sean DeLaney, Chris Layne, Marcus Holman, Gavin Petracca and Jimmy Dunster scoring the goals.
Neither team dented the scoreboard in the first six minutes of the third quarter before DeLaney scored his second unassisted goal of the game with 8:14 left. Just 2:11 later, Chris Layne scored his second career goal to push the Tar Heel lead to 11-4. Thomas Wood assisted on the next two goals by the Tar Heels. He fed freshman Marcus Holman for a goal at 5:41 and then was the assist man on a tally by Gavin Petracca with 2:53 to play in the stanza. Carolina finished off the scoring in the third quarter as Cryder DiPietro assisted on Dunster's second goal of the game with three seconds left in the period.
UNC outscored the Mountain Hawks 3-1 in the final quarter as Wood scored both of his goals in the final 15 minutes. He scored with 11:24 to play, assisted by Dunster. Lehigh tallied its final goal of the day with 8:14 to play as Johnston notched his second of the afternoon off an assist by Fantoni.
Carolina had the last two goals of the game with Dunster scoring his third goal, again assisted by DiPietro with 7:35 left and Wood scoring off an assist by Bitter with 4:17 to play.
Carolina will have five days to prepare itself before meeting the Navy Midshipmen next Thursday at 7 p.m. at Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Md.
