University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Fairfield
Men's Lacrosse Stays In NCAA Hunt
April 27, 2002 | Men's Lacrosse
April 27, 2002
FAIRFIELD, CONN. - The 12th-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels scored the first four goals of the game Saturday afternoon and never looked back as they defeated 19th-ranked Fairfield 15-8 in men's lacrosse action at Alumni Field. A crowd of 988 on Fairfield's senior day saw the Tar Heels improve to 8-4 with the victory while Fairfield fell to 7-5 on the campaign.
Fairfield, the 2002 Great Western Lacrosse League champion, has already clinched its spot in the NCAA Tournament field, earning the automatic bid from the GWLL. UNC's win kept alive the Tar Heels' hopes for an at-large bid to this year's 12-team NCAA Tournament field.
Freshman attackman Mike McCall had a career day for the Tar Heels as he scored four goals and had four assists to lead the Tar Heels' attack. Sophomore attackman Andrew Lucas had three goals for the Tar Heels while freshman attackman Jed Prossner and senior midfielder Pat Jackson had two goals and two assists apiece for Carolina. Freshman midfielder Bryant Will added one goal and two assists and junior midfielder Kyle Bell had a goal and an assist.
UNC freshman goalkeeper Paul Spellman was brilliant in goal for the Tar Heels as he made 17 saves and allowed only eight goals. The 17 saves were one short of his career high of 18 set earlier this season at Johns Hopkins.
Fairfield was led in wscoring by Matt Buecker who had two goals and one assist. A.J. Califano added a pair of goals for the Stags.
The win gave Carolina only its second season with at least eight wins since 1996. UNC finished the 2000 campaign with an 8-6 mark.
North Carolina came out of the gate strong, scoring the first goal in the first three minutes of each of the four quarters. Junior midfielder Austin Garrison, a New Canaan, Conn. native playing in his home state for the first time in his Tar Heel career, opened the scoring at 13:34 of the first quarter and then Jackson and McCall followed up with goals at the 12:28 and 12:13 marks of the period. Prossner scored with 7:54 left in the first quarter to make the score 4-0 before Garrett Baumann got Fairfield on the board with 3:46 left to go in the first quarter off an assist by Ricky Voight.
The Tar Heels went on to build a 9-2 lead at the half. McCall scored his second goal with 1:06 left in the first quarter to give the Heels a 5-1 lead and then the Heels ran off the first four goals of the second quarter to stretch the lead to 9-1. Four different players scored in that run as Prossner, McCall, Lucas and Bell had the tallies. Buecker scored the first of his two goals for Fairfield 3:25 before halftime to cut the Stags' deficit at halftime to seven goals.
Carolina iced the game with a 5-2 scoring margin in the third quarter. The Tar Heels got back-to-back goals by Lucas and then McCall scored his fourth goal of the game to push the margin to 12-2 with 7:46 left in the third period. Buecker scored his second goal for FU with 7:22 left in the quarter but that goal was answered by Tar Heel junior midfielder Justin Reed with 5:21 left in the quarter.. Reed, also playing in his home state as he hails from Darien, Conn., got the first point of his career with that goal. After Troy Baumann scored for Fairfield, UNC got goals by Will and Jackson to achieve its biggest lead of the game at 15-4 with 12:45 left in the game.
The Stags scored the final four goals of the game in the final 10:58 to cut the final deficit to seven goals. Califano had both of his goals in that game-ending scoring run. UNC outshot the Stags 49-26 and had 43 ground balls to 32 for Fairfield. C.J. Kemp played the first three quarters in goal for Fairfield and had eight saves and 14 goals allowed. Corey Gibbons came off the bench and did a good job for the Stags as he made seven saves while allowing only one goal in the fourth quarter.
Carolina benefitted from the Stags' penalty problems as the Tar Heels scored six extra-man goals on eight chances.
The Tar Heels will conclude the regular season with a big game next Wednesday night at Hofstra. The Pride are the hottest team in college lacrosse, having won nine straight games to stand at 10-3 overall. The Pride is currently ranked #9 in the country and Carolina #12 but both teams are expected to move up in Monday's rankings after losses this past week by Virginia, Cornell, Duke, Massachusetts and Loyola. The Hofstra-Carolina game is set for a 7:30 p.m. faceoff on Wednesday at Hofstra Stadium in Hemspead, N.Y.
