Tar Heels Advance To ACC Final, 14-8

Friday, April 27

Durham, N.C.

8:00 PM

North Carolina

14-3

Virginia Tech

13-6

Virginia Tech

North Carolina

Charlotte Sofield and Kara Klages celebrate

Photo by: ACC

April 27, 2018 | Women's Lacrosse

Box Score Final Stats (.pdf)

DURHAM, N.C.—Second-seeded North Carolina (14-3) held third-seeded Virginia Tech scoreless for 17:54 during an 8-0 run and beat the Hokies, 14-8, in the ACC Tournament semifinals on Friday night at Koskinen Stadium on the campus of Duke University.

The Tar Heels advanced to Sunday's championship game to face top-seeded Boston College, which beat Notre Dame in Friday's first semifinal matchup.

UNC advanced to the ACC final for the fourth year in a row, the eighth time in the last nine years and the 12^thtime overall. Carolina improved to 26-0 all-time against the Hokies.

"Coach Sung and his staff have done a really good job with their program at Virginia Tech, and it was a really competitive game, as it should be," UNC head coach Jenny Levy said afterward. "It challenged us, and I thought we responded in a lot of different ways.  I was really excited about a few things we did.

"I thought we were flat to start the game against their zone [defense], and their zone is really good. This is a senior-laden Virginia Tech team, and they started well. We made some adjustments in how we played it, which was a fun challenge."

Marie McCool, Jamie Ortega and Ela Hazar each had hat tricks for the Tar Heels. McCool finished with three goals, two assists and seven draw controls. Hazar had three goals and an assist. She broke her own UNC single-season assist record midway through the first half with her 41^stof the year.

Maggie Bill scored twice for UNC, and Kara Klages had a goal and an assist. Gianna Bowe and Charlotte Sofield also scored single goals.

Taylor Moreno (4-1) started for Carolina in goal and played well in picking up the win, making tying her career high with 17 saves in 60 minutes.

Carolina took control in the second half of the first half, holding the Hokies scoreless for the final 14:56 of the period.  UNC went on a 5-0 run in under four minutes to turn a 3-2 deficit at the 14:56 mark a 7-3 lead with 5:28 left in the first half. The Tar Heels got one more goal late in the half and led, 8-3, at halftime.

UNC scored the first two goals of the second half to extend its run to 8-0 over the course of 17:54. The Hokies could never cut the lead to fewer than six goals the rest of the way.