University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Louisville
Tar Heels Beat Louisville, 15-5, For Eighth In a Row
April 9, 2016 | Women's Lacrosse
CHAPEL HILL—Third-ranked North Carolina got a career-high 13 saves from senior goalie Megan Ward and beat No. 5 Louisville, 15-5, on Saturday afternoon. Marie McCool had a hat trick in the second half to lead a balanced attack as the Tar Heels won their eighth consecutive game and improved to 11-2 overall this season, 5-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Louisville, which had won five in a row entering the weekend, fell to 12-2, 3-2. The Cardinals are ranked No. 6 in the IWLCA poll and No. 5 in the media poll. UNC is third in both polls.
McCool finished with three goals and an assist. Other top scorers for Carolina included Ela Hazar, Molly Hendrick and Aly Messinger, all of whom had two goals and two assists. Sammy Jo Tracy had three goals and seven draw controls, while Gianna Bowe and Kelly Devlin added single goals.
For the Cardinals, Hannah Koloski scored twice and Cortnee Daley had a goal and an assist. Emily Howell and Madison Hoover also scored, and Kaylin Morissette and Meghan Siverson added assists.
“I'm happy with the win today,” said Tar Heel head coach Jenny Levy after the game. “I thought we played better than we did last weekend in the sense that we played a much cleaner game for 60 minutes whereas last week we had some ebb and flow. One of our goals was to try to string it all together for 60 minutes, so I was happy with that.”
Louisville scored first in the opening minutes, then saw the Tar Heels go on a 3-0 run to take a 3-1 lead with 20:04 left in the half, forcing a Cardinal timeout. Carolina led the rest of the first half, building a lead as high as 9-3 with a pair of 4-0 runs. UNC led, 9-4, at the break.
McCool started the second half with back-to-back goals in a 16-second span in the first two minutes for an 11-4 lead. Koloski responded eight minutes later to make it 11-5, only to see UNC score the last four goals of the game.
The Tar Heels maintained control of the flow of the action throughout the second half with their lead never falling below six goals in the final 20 minutes.
Team stats were relatively even, including shots (29-28 for UNC and draw controls 11-10 for the Tar Heels while the Cardinals had more ground balls (19-18). The teams both committed 13 turnovers.
Tar Heel goalie Caylee Waters, who had battled an illness all week, started in goal but only played the first 1:05 before being replaced quickly by Ward (1-1), who played the rest of the game and made a career-high 13 saves. Brittany Read (12-2) took the loss for the Cards, going the distance in the cage and making six saves.
“I think we shut down some of their main players, who didn't get off as many shots as we thought they could,” said Ward after the win. “We keyed on certain players and just played well all across the field for 60 minutes, which was one of our focuses.”
Carolina will return to action next Saturday April 16 at Syracuse.
