North Carolina
Northwestern
Tar Heels Beat No. 1 Northwestern, 18-16
April 18, 2010 | Women's Lacrosse
April 18, 2010
EVANSTON, ILL. - The UNC women's lacrosse team, ranked No. 2 in the nation, beat No. 1 Northwestern, 18-16, on Sunday afternoon at Lakeside Field, ending Northwestern's 41-game winning streak and handing the Wildcats their first home loss in 59 games. Northwestern hadn't lost a game in nearly two years, since a defeat at the hands of Penn on Apr. 27, 2008. Carolina won its seventh game in a row and improved to 13-1 this season. Northwestern fell to 12-1.
Laura Zimmerman led Carolina with career highs of five goals and seven points in the game. Corey Donohoe had three goals and two assists and Becky Lynch had two goals and three assists for the Tar Heels. Megan Bosica scored three goals, Kristen Taylor had a goal and an assist, Jenn Russell had a goal and two assists, Kara Cannizzaro had two goals and Mia Hurrin scored once.
Katrina Dowd led Northwestern with seven goals and one assist. Shannon Smith had two goals and three assists for the Wildcats and Alexandra Frank had three goals and one assist.
After the game was tied 12-12 at halftime, Carolina's defense limited the Wildcats to four second-half goals. Logan Ripley started the game and allowed the Wildcats' first nine goals of the game, at which point she went to the bench in favor of freshman Lauren Maksym, who finished the half and allowed three Wildcat goals. Ripley returned and played the entire second half, making seven saves and allowing just four goals in the final 30 minutes. For the game, Ripley allowed 13 goals and made nine saves. Maksym allowed three goals without a save.
The first half was full of offensive runs, as the Wildcats opened up the game with two consecutive free position goals, which were quickly answered by a pair of Carolina goals just a minute apart.
Northwestern would tally the next four scores and appeared to be taking control of the game, building a 6-2 advantage at the 14:39 mark. But as they would do all afternoon, the Tar Heels responded quickly, using a 6-0 run over a four-minute span to claim the lead at 8-6 with 9:59 remaining in the first half. Zimmerman and Cannizzaro had two goals apiece during the 6-0 run.
That run was then answered by the Wildcats with a 6-0 run of their own over a six minute span, sparked by three goals from Dowd. She also assisted on a goal from Smith as Northwestern built a 12-8 lead with just over three minutes to play in the opening half. But that only seemed to spark the Tar Heel attack, which responded with four goals in the final two minutes--including a pair in the final 15 seconds of the half--to send the game into the halftime break tied at 12. Zimmerman scored with two seconds left in the first half to tie the game at 12-12 at the break.
That late run by Carolina proved to be the turning point in the contest, as the Tar Heels would score three of the first four in the second half to build a 15-13 lead with 19:21 remaining. Dowd was twice able to cut the gap to one, doing so at 15-14 and again at 16-15, but a pair of late tallies by North Carolina extended its lead to 18-15 with 7:31 left to play. The Wildcats had some opportunities down the stretch, but some big saves from Ripley kept the Northwestern rally at bay.
It was a very even contest between the nation's top two teams as both the Wildcats and Tar Heels were nearly equal in every statistical category. Northwestern held a 33-31 edge in shots and a 16-13 advantage in ground balls while North Carolina was better in the turnover category (12-8) and the two teams were equal in draw controls (18-18).
The Tar Heels are the top seed in next weekend's Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament and have a bye to Friday's semifinal round. Carolina will play the winner of No. 4 seed Duke against No. 5 seed Boston College on Friday at 2:30 p.m. in College Park, Md.
