University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
3-0
Lehigh
2-1
Goldstock & Matthews Power Offense In 15-8 Win Over Lehigh
February 18, 2017 | Men's Lacrosse
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The second-ranked University of North Carolina men's lacrosse team spotted Lehigh an early lead, running off five goals midway through the first quarter, en route to a 15-8 victory over the Mountain Hawks in Carolina's home opener Saturday afternoon. A crowd of 1,636 fans saw the defending NCAA champion Tar Heels improve to 3-0 on the season while the Mountain Hawks fell to 2-1.
Senior Luke Goldstock scored five goals, just one shy of his career high in a match, while freshman William Perry had his first career hat trick and sophomore Andy Matthews recorded a career-high four assists, all in the first 17 minutes of the game.
After a high-scoring first half in which the Tar Heels outscored the Mountain Hawks 11-7, Carolina limited Lehigh to just one goal in the second half. UNC goalkeeper Brian Balkam made 10 saves and allowed just eight goals in 54:45 before giving way to Jack Pezzulla, while senior defenseman Austin Pifani had a career high four caused turnovers to lead the UNC defensive effort. Lehigh employed two goalkeepers with Chris Kiernan seeing the bulk of the action. He made seven saves and allowed 15 goals in 54:17 minutes of action.
UNC outshot the Mountain Hawks 40-29 in the game while Lehigh had a 30-29 edge in ground balls. UNC's Stephen Kelly won 14 of 23 face-offs for Carolina and had a game-high six ground balls for Coach Joe Breschi's team. Both squads were turnover prone with Lehigh committing 16 miscues and Carolina coughing up the ball 15 times. Both teams were excellent in clearing the ball as Lehigh went 18-for-20 and North Carolina was 15-for-16. Both teams struggled on their extra-man scoring chances as Lehigh went 1-for-4 and Carolina went 0-for-4.
In addition to the scoring efforts from Goldstock, Perry and Matthews, Chris Cloutier had two goals for UNC while Tate Jozokos, Brian Cannon and Luke Walsh each had a goal and an assist. Michael Tagliaferri and Timmy Kelly also scored for Carolina and Brett Bedard recorded his first career assist. Andrew Pettit led Lehigh with three goals and an assist while Andrew Eichelberger notched two tallies and Tristan Rai has a goal and three assists.
Lehigh came out of the opening face-off firing on all cylinders. A fast break goal by Tristan Rai put Lehigh up 1-0 with 12:40 left in the first quarter and Andrew Eichelberger scored off an assist by John Mehok with 9:11 to play to make it 2-0. Led by the feeding game from Matthews, UNC then ran off five goals in a span of 6:24 to take a 5-2 lead it would never relinquish.
William Perry scored the first of his three goals at 8:20, assisted by Matthews. A flurry of action a little over a minute later resulted in an unassisted goal by Goldstock off a rebound of a shot by Cloutier that had been saved on the doorstep by Kiernan. Carolina took the lead for good with 6:01 left in the period when Tate Jozokos scored off a successful clear with the assist going to Bedard, his career first. Less than a minute later, Perry scored his second goal of the opening 10 minutes, again assisted by Matthews. The third assist of the opening period for Matthews found the stick of Cloutier who finished past Kiernan to make it 5-2 Tar Heels with just less than two minutes left in the period. The Mountain Hawks worked their passing game to perfection in the closing seconds of the opening period, resulting in a goal by Andrew Pettit with six seconds to play, assisted by Tristan Rai.
In the opening six minutes of the second quarter the two teams traded goals. Goldstock scored off an assist by Matthews at 13:13 but exactly one minute later Andrew Pettit tallied a man-up goal for Lehigh. UNC made it 7-4 with a goal by Brian Cannon, assisted by Luke Walsh, at 9:52, but Lehigh's Conor Gaffney won the ensuing face-off and Pettit assisted a Parker Kent goal 14 seconds later and UNC's led was back to two goals.
Carolina then seized the momentum with a four-goal flurry in a span of just 2:19 shortly past the midway point of the quarter. Luke Walsh tallied an unassisted goal at 6:45, followed 37 seconds later by a goal by Goldstock set up by a Balkam save, a successful clear and an assist from Jozokos. At 5:26, Goldstock scored his fourth goal of the match and exactly one minute later Timmy Kelly notched a goal, assisted by Cannon. The Tar Heels were up 11-5.
Lehigh would bounce back before intermission. After a turnover by Tagliaferri, Eichelberger dodged around the crease to score past Balkam with 1:32 left in the half. UNC looked like it would get the last shot of the first half but Kiernan saved an effort by Cloutier with 11 seconds left in the half and Lehigh scored on the fast break as time expire in the half.
Lehigh controlled the ball for the first eight minutes of the third quarter, taking the first five shots of the quarter while Carolina was committing four turnovers. But the Mountain Hawks never cut into UNC's lead and Goldstock scored on UNC's first shot of the period with 6:31 to play. The goal was the senior's fifth of the match and it gave the Tar Heels a 12-7 advantage. Cloutier and Perry scored later in the period as UNC doubled up Lehigh 14-7 heading into the final 15 minutes.
There were only two goals in the final period. Pettit completed his hat trick for Lehigh at the 8:09 mark and Tagliaferri answered with his first goal of the season with 5:43 to play.
Carolina will return to action next Saturday against the undefeated and #5-ranked Johns Hopkins University Blue Jays at Fetzer Field at 1 p.m. The game will be broadcast nationally on ACC Network Extra/ESPN3/WatchESPN. The Blue Jays remained undefeated after a 14-13 overtime victory over Loyola on Saturday.
