Tar Heels Head To Virginia For ACC Opener Saturday

Saturday, March 10

Charlottesville, Va.

1:00 PM

North Carolina

Virginia

Freshman Ally Mastroianni and the Tar Heels will open ACC play on Saturday.

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

March 7, 2018 | Women's Lacrosse

Watch Live Stats Game Notes

• The North Carolina women's lacrosse team will begin a four-game road swing and open Atlantic Coast Conference play when it visits Virginia on Saturday at 1 p.m.
• The Cavaliers are Carolina's third consecutive top-10 opponent. Two weeks agao, the Tar Heels beat top-ranked Maryland, 16-15, in overtime. Last Saturday, No. 4 Florida won in Chapel Hill, 17-10.
• Carolina is ranked No. 5 this week in the IWLCA coaches poll and No. 6 in the Cascade media poll. Virginia is No. 6 in the coaches poll and No. 7 in the media poll.
• The Cavaliers are 5-0 this season and are coming off a 17-16 win over Syracuse last weekend.
• Saturday's game will be streamed live by ACC Network Extra.
• The Tar Heels are embarking on a stretch of four road games in a row, a run that also will include trips to Elon, Northwestern and Boston College in a two-week span.

SERIES HISTORY VS. VIRGINIA
• North Carolina leads the all-time series with Virginia, 24-13, including a pair of wins in Chapel Hill last season. Carolina beat UVA, 21-11, in the regular season and 23-12 in the NCAA Tournament second round.
• Carolina has won 13 of the last 14 installments in the series.
• The series is tied, 8-8, in games played in Charlottesville.
• Carolina head coach Jenny Levy played at Virginia from 1988-92, where she was a teammate of UVa head coach Julie Myers. Levy was a two-time first-team All-America attacker (then known as Jenny Slingluff). She was the Most Outstanding Attacker of the 1991 NCAA Tournament, leading the Cavs to their first-ever NCAA championship by scoring three goals in the title game.
• Levy and Myers are both members of the 300-win club as head coaches.

2017 REGULAR SEASON VS. UVA
UNC 21, VIRGINIA 11 (March 11, 2017)
• Carolina opened the second half with an 8-0 run and defeated Virginia, 21-11, on March 11 at Fetzer Field.
• Molly Hendrick finished the day with six goals, five of them in the second half. Marie McCool and Sammy Jo Tracy scored four each, and Ela Hazar had two to go with her team-high five assists. Maggie Bill and Kara Klages added two goals each and Carly Reed had one.

2017 NCAA TOURNAMENT VS. UVA
UNC 23, VIRGINIA 12 (MAY 14, 2017)
• Second-seeded North Carolina got big games from Marie McCool and Carly Reed and defeated unseeded Virginia, 23-12, in the NCAA Tournament second round at Fetzer Field. Reed scored a career-high six goals, and McCool had five goals and two assists.
• UNC's 23 goals were the most it has scored in any of its 47 NCAA Tournament games, eclipsing the previous record of 22 set vs. UMBC in 2002. Carolina set a season high for goals, besting the 21 it scored against Virginia in the regular season in Chapel Hill.
• In addition to McCool and Reed, the Tar Heels got three goals and an assist from both Sammy Jo Tracy and Molly Hendrick and two goals and two assists from Sydney Holman. Katie Hoeg scored twice, while Kara Klages and Charlotte Allard scored once each. Ela Hazar had an assist, breaking the UNC single-season assist mark with her 37th of the year.

#4 GATORS TOP TAR HEELS IN CHAPEL HILL
• Fourth-ranked Florida got six goals from Shayna Pirreca and five from Lindsey Ronbeck, along with a career-high 16 saves from Haley Hicklen, and defeated third-ranked North Carolina, 17-10, on March 3 at Kenan Stadium.
• Marie McCool led the Tar Heels with four goals and a career-high 13 draw controls. Jamie Ortega had two goals and an assist, Marisa DiVietro scored twice and Olivia Ferrucci had a goal and an assist.
• Fifth-year senior Maggie Bill made her first game appearance in nearly a year after suffering a knee injury last year and scored a goal.

McCOOL & TRENCHARD SWEEP ACC HONORS AFTER MARYLAND WIN
• Following an overtime win over top-ranked Maryland, North Carolina senior midfielder Marie McCool was named the ACC Women's Lacrosse Offensive Player of the Week, while teammate freshman defender Emma Trenchard was the ACC Defensive Player of the Week (February 27).
• McCool led UNC to a 16-15 overtime win over No. 1 Maryland with four goals, one assist, eight draw controls, two caused turnovers and a ground ball. McCool assisted on teammate Ela Hazar's game-tying goal with 22 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime. In the extra period, she scored the game-winner off an assist from Jamie Ortega.
• Trenchard led a strong Tar Heel defensive effort, controlling four draws, collecting three ground balls and causing three turnovers. Trenchard controlled the draw to start overtime, then brought the ball into the offensive end to start the possession that included the game-winning goal by McCool. The Windsor, Conn., native helped guide a UNC defense that held Maryland scoreless for the final 9:25 of the game.

TAR HEELS TRIP TOP-RANKED TERPS IN OT, 16-15
• Marie McCool scored 43 seconds into overtime to lift seventh-ranked North Carolina to a 16-15 win over top-ranked Maryland on Feb. 24.
• After freshman Emma Trenchard won the draw to start the extra period, fellow freshman Jamie Ortega dished to McCool, who scored the game-winner. McCool also assisted Ela Hazar's goal with 22 seconds remaining in the second half to tie the game at 15-all. Carolina overcame a two-goal deficit in the final four minutes of regulation to force overtime.
• Maryland saw its 25-game overall winning streak and its 24-game road winning streaks come to an end. It was Maryland's first road loss in nearly four years, since a 17-15 UNC win in Chapel Hill in 2014.
• Ortega led all players with six points on four goals and two assists in the game, while McCool had four goals and one assist and Hazar had three goals and an assist. Ally Mastroianni scored twice and added an assist for Carolina, while Katie Hoeg had a goal and two assists. Kara Klages and Gianna Bowe each scored single goals.

TAR HEELS PLAYING AT KENAN STADIUM IN 2018
• The Tar Heel men's and women's lacrosse teams will play their home games in 2018 at Kenan Stadium, home of the UNC football team. Carolina's home lacrosse stadium, Fetzer Field, is under extensive renovations and scheduled to reopen for the 2018-19 academic year.
• The new Fetzer Field will be a soccer/lacrosse facility with improved fan amenities, office space for UNC coaches, training and medical facilities, locker rooms and more.
• Fetzer was built in 1935, and the Carolina women's lacrosse team has played games at Fetzer since the inception of the program in 1996.
• Carolina is 139-28 all-time at Fetzer Field, including 18-2 in NCAA Tournament games.

Marie McCool BACK FOR MORE AS A SENIOR
• Midfielder Marie McCool is among the most decorated players in the nation and is primed to earn more national honors as senior in 2018.
• She leads the Tar Heels with 22 goals, 24 points and 44 draw controls this season.
• The do-it-all McCool tied her career high with seven goals on Feb. 18 versus Liberty and controlled a career-high 13 draws on March 3 against Florida.
• McCool won ACC Offensive Player of the Week honors on Feb. 27 after tallying four goals, an assist and eight draw controls in UNC's win over Maryland.
• She was one of five 2017 finalists for the Tewaaraton Award, the highest individual honor in the sport, as well as one of four nominees for the 2017 Honda Award for Lacrosse. She is a two-time, first-team All-America and two-time, first-team All-ACC pick. She also was the 2017 ACC Midfielder of the Year and the 2017 ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
• McCool also was one of just two college players on the United States National Team that won a gold medal at the World Cup in England in July of 2017.

HAZAR APPROACHING UNC CAREER ASSIST RECORD
• Senior attacker Ela Hazar enters Saturday's game with 85 career assists, ranking third in school history in the category. She needs one assist to tie Sydney Holman (2014-17) for second place and seven to tie Becky Lynch (2009-12) for the UNC career record of 92.
• Hazar had a school-record 40 assists last season.

BILL'S BACK
• Fifth-year senior midfielder Maggie Bill returned to the field for her first game action in nearly a year when she came off the bench to play against Florida on March 3.
• Bill, who suffered a lower leg injury on April 8 last year against Louisville, scored a goal against the Gators as she began to work her way back into the Tar Heel rotation.