Tar Heels Advance To NCAA Quarterfinals With Win over Monmouth

Saturday, May 15

Chapel Hill

Noon

North Carolina

12-2

Monmouth (NCAA First Round)

8-3

Monmouth

North Carolina

Justin Anderson celebrates UNC's first goal of the day. He scored the gamewinner just 25 seconds into the action.

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

Tar Heels Advance To NCAA Quarterfinals With Win over Monmouth

May 15, 2021 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score Box Score (PDF)NCAA Bracket

By: UNC Athletic Communications

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Playing its first homefield NCAA Tournament game since 2015, the North Carolina men's lacrosse team beat Monmouth 16-4 Saturday afternoon at Dorrance Field. The Tar Heels, the top seed in the 2021 NCAA field, improved to 12-2 on the season with the first-round win and advanced on to the quarterfinals next Saturday in Hempstead, N.Y.

"A great season by Monmouth and Coach (Brian) Fisher," UNC coach Joe Breschi said. "This was a really sound effort for us defensively – Collin Krieg in the cage and the defense as a whole did a great job. Offensively I thought we got better in the second half, we started to share the ball more, create more opportunities and put more pressure on their defense."

Senior Chris Gray led UNC with four goals and two assists, and his six points catapulted him to the Carolina single-season program record. He now has 83 points, surpassing the 81 scored by Bruce Ledwith in 1973. Saturday's win was the first NCAA Tournament game for Gray, a Tewaaraton Award finalist who is in his second season at UNC after transferring from Boston University.

Juniors Jacob Kelly and Nicky Solomon and senior Ryan O'Connell had two goals each as the Tar Heels won an NCAA Tournament game by the program's largest margin since 1990, when UNC beat Harvard 18-3.

The Tar Heels jumped out to an early lead, sparked by fifth-year senior Justin Anderson's game-winning goal just 25 seconds into the action, the first of the 2021 NCAA Tournament. It had already been a big 24 hours for Anderson, who along with wife Priscilla welcomed a daughter on Friday afternoon.

After Anderson – who is 25 and even before actually becoming a father was affectionately called "Dad" by his teammates – got the scoring rolling, the Tar Heels reeled off six in a row before Monmouth got on the board. Mike McIntyre scored for the Hawks with 6:16 to play in the second quarter, then the Tar Heels scored six more to lead 12-1 with 2:21 to play in the third quarter. Monmouth scored three times in the final 15:33 of the game.

UNC's freshman goalkeeper Collin Krieg made 15 saves in 48:33 of play, and Will Pettit made five in the final 11:27. For Krieg, the saves total matched his second-highest of the season and he even added his first career assist, when Kelly scored off the keeper's long pass downfield with two seconds to play in the third quarter.

With 20 saves on the day, UNC held Monmouth to the lowest score by an opponent since the Tar Heels beat Furman 7-3 early in the 2017 season.

Junior Zac Tucci and sophomore Andrew Tyeryar combined to win 15 of 24 face-offs, including nine of 10 in the first half. Tyeryar finished 8-12 for the day and Tucci 7-12.

UNC was successful on a season-high 30 of 31 clear opportunities for the day and perfect through the first three quarters.

The win was the first in NCAA Tournament play for UNC since the Tar Heels beat Maryland in overtime to win the 2016 national championship. Carolina last made the field in 2017 and fell in a first-round game at Albany that year.

For Anderson, a freshman on that 2017 team who is now playing a fifth season after Covid cut short the 2020 campaign that was to have been his last, this NCAA victory has been a long time coming and made for an amazing few days.

"Winning in the playoffs is something I've always wanted to do – to have an opportunity to move forward and keep playing for a national championship is something I've always dreamed of," he said. "Today was amazing. But also yesterday, being able to hold my little baby girl in my arms and go through that process with my wife was out of the this world incredible, something I'll never forget. So I'm kind of feeling sky-high right now.

Anderson pulled an all-nighter at the hospital on Thursday and missed Friday's practice but was able to get eight hours of sleep on Friday night while his mother-in-law spent the night at the hospital. "I know my wife didn't get to sleep that much," Anderson said. "She was the real champion of today, I would say."

In advancing to the quarterfinals, hosted by Hofstra, the Tar Heels will face Rutgers, which beat Lehigh 12-5 Saturday in a first-round game played in Charlottesville, Va.