Tar Heels Host Duke Sunday In Battle For Conference Crown

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The North Carolina men's lacrosse team hosts Duke Sunday at Kenan Stadium for a rematch of last month's overtime battle in Durham. The top-three matchup also will decide the 2021 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship.

Game time is 4 p.m. For tickets, click here.

The game will air live on ACC Network.

The third-ranked Tar Heels (10-2, 3-2 ACC) and second-ranked Blue Devils (12-1, 4-2) played on April 1 at Duke, with the hosts winning 12-11 in overtime. As the final game of the regular season and with no ACC Tournament this year, Sunday's matchup will decide the conference championship: a Duke win gives the Blue Devils the title outright with a 5-1 league mark. A UNC win would mean both finish with 4-2 ACC records and share the championship.

Notes on the Rivalry
Sunday's game is the 77th meeting in a series that dates back to 1952. The Tar Heels lead the all-time series 42-34, but Duke has won three of the last four and 20 of the last 25.
• Duke won the season's first meeting, 12-11 in overtime on April 1 in Durham. It's been UNC's only OT game of the season so far.
• The Blue Devils won 16 of 17 in a span from 2005 to 2013.
• Just once in the past 10 years has the margin of victory been larger than three goals. Duke won 12-8 in Chapel Hill in 2017 and every other final in that span has been tighter than that. Over the last 10 games, the average margin of victory has been 1.8 goals.
• Six of the past eight games have been decided by a single goal.

Noting the Tar Heels
• UNC ranks second nationally in scoring (17.25 goals per game), behind only Penn, which scored 23 goals in its only game. The Tar Heels are seventh in assists (9.3 apg).
• Senior Chris Gray is fifth in the NCAA in points per game (5.9), 11th in goals and 12th in assists.
• The Tar Heels are first in the ACC and 16th nationally in man-down defense (.722).
• UNC is sixth nationally in scoring margin (+6.3) and Duke is seventh (+5.6).
• UNC has won more than one ACC game for the first time since 2016, when the Tar Heels went 3-1 in league play and marched on to claim the NCAA title.
• Carolina's two losses this season are by a combined three goals.
• UNC has the best clearing percentage among ACC teams – .875 – and ranks 16th in the NCAA.
• The Tar Heels are second in the nation in turnovers per game, committing an average of 12.3 (compared with 15.25 for opponents).
• The Tar Heels rank 16th nationally in man-down defense, having allowed just 15 extra-man goals in 54 opponent opportunities (.278).
• UNC leads the ACC in man-down goals this spring. The Tar Heels have scored six (with Chris Gray accounting for three). No other conference team has scored one.
• UNC held its opponent scoreless in a quarter in three games in a row (Q2 vs. Air Force, Q4 vs. Duke, Q2 vs. Virginia). The Tar Heel defense didn't have a scoreless quarter against Syracuse or Notre Dame, but held each to a single goal in the first quarter. (That's after giving up seven first-quarter goals to UVA in the previous game.)
• The Tar Heels are 90-98 in clears in their five ACC games.
• Air Force (March 20th) was the Tar Heels' sixth Southern Conference opponent of 2021 and the final non-conference opponent of the season.
• Chris Gray's six assists vs. Air Force marked the first time since 2013 a Tar Heel has had six or more assists in a game. Marcus Holman had six on two occasions in 2013. The last time a player had more was in 1997 (Merrill Turnbull with 7). Gray equaled that feat at Syracuse, when he had two goals and six assists.
• Gray was announced on March 24 as one of 52 recipients of the ACC's Weaver-James-Corrigan Postgraduate Scholarship Awards for 2021. A management and society major, Gray was recently admitted to UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School and plans to begin working toward his MBA there next year.
• Eight Tar Heels were part of the Inside Lacrosse Midseason All-America teams announced on April 8. Gray, Tanner Cook and Will Bowen were named to the first team; Connor Maher and William Perry to the third team; and Justin Anderson, Collin Krieg and Matt Wright to the honorable mention list.
• Two Tar Heels were selected in the Premier Lacrosse League Draft on April 26. Tanner Cook went 15th to the Chaos and Justin Anderson 20th to the Chrome.

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Players Mentioned

Justin Anderson

Will Bowen

Tanner Cook

Chris Gray

Collin Krieg

Connor Maher

William Perry

Matt Wright