Carolina Opens ACC Play With 16-13 Win At Virginia

Thursday, March 11

Charlottesville, Va.

7:00 PM

North Carolina

7-0, 1-0ACC

Virginia

5-2, 0-2ACC

North Carolina

Virginia

Photo by: UVA MEDIA RELATIONS

March 11, 2021 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score Final Stats

By: UNC Athletic Communications

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – North Carolina opened Atlantic Coast Conference men's lacrosse play with a bang Thursday night, beating No. 8 Virginia 16-13 on the road. With the win at Klöckner Stadium, the second-ranked Tar Heels improved to 7-0 overall and 1-0 in ACC play.

Senior Chris Gray, announced earlier in the day on Thursday as a part of the Tewaaraton Award watch list, scored four times to lead the Tar Heels, who got goals from nine different players.

Freshman goalkeeper Collin Krieg finished with a career-high 20 saves in the Tar Heels' first win over Virginia since 2017.

First ACC win ✅ Highlights from tonight's 16-13 road win ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/RijZJY8Bj0 — UNC Men's Lacrosse (@UNCMensLacrosse) March 12, 2021

Carolina led wire-to-wire, jumping out to an early 2-0 lead on goals by Gray and Nicky Solomon in the first 2:30 of the game. Solomon scored again and Carolina got goals from William Perry and Jacob Kelly to close out the first quarter with a 5-2 lead.

UNC opened the second period with adversity – a three-minute non-releasable penalty – but survived, and even thrived. Krieg made a save to start the quarter then Brian Cameron and Andrew Tyeryar scored man-down goals to increase the Carolina lead to 7-2 by the time the Tar Heels were back at full strength. After a Virginia goal by Charlie Bertrand, UNC scored four in a row to go up by eight, 11-3, the largest margin of the game. UVA got a late goal to make it 11-4 at halftime.

The Cavaliers outscored the Tar Heels 4-2 in the third quarter – and 9-5 overall after halftime – but the Tar Heels managed to hold onto the advantage.

After the home team got the first goal of the fourth quarter, the Tar Heels answered with two in a row, by Gray (assisted by Solomon) and Matt Wright (assisted by Cameron) to go up 15-9. After that, Virginia scored four straight to pull within two before a late empty-cage goal by Justin Anderson made it 16-13 for the final score.

Virginia (5-2, 0-2 ACC) finished with 62 shots to UNC's 48, the first time this season that the Tar Heels had been outshot. UVa also had more ground balls (37-24) and led 21-11 in faceoffs.

The Tar Heels now step back out of conference one more time, hosting Air Force at Kenan Stadium on March 20.