North Carolina
Duke
No. 9 Tar Heels Top No. 4 Duke, 16-14
March 22, 2008 | Women's Lacrosse
March 22, 2008
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Led by four goals and four assists from sophomore Megan Bosica, the ninth-ranked North Carolina women's lacrosse team beat fourth-ranked Duke Saturday afternoon at Fetzer Field. UNC improved to 7-2 on the season and picked up its first Atlantic Coast Conference win to even its league mark at 1-1. Duke fell to 7-2 overall and 1-1 in ACC play.
"Megan played great," UNC coach Jenny Levy said. "She really generated our offense from a lot of different scenarios in the first half, whether it was broken plays, coming up with the draw or making great plays offensively. She was really good and the whole team was working with her. It wasn't just the Meggie show - everyone was working together."
Saturday's win earned UNC a point in the Carlyle Cup race, the annual multisport competition between Carolina and Duke. The Tar Heels currently lead the 2007-08 Carlyle Cup standings 15-4.
The win was Carolina's second in a row over Duke, following a 12-11 Tar Heel win in the semifinals of the 2007 Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament in Chapel Hill. The Blue Devils have won seven of the last 10 meetings in the series, however, and they lead the overall series 11-9.
Tar Heel sophomore Kristen Taylor opened the scoring on an assist from Bosica just over two minutes into the game, but Duke responded with unassisted goals by Emma Hamm, Danielle Kachulis and Lindsay Gilbride to go up by two. After Bosica answered with her first goal of the game, at the 19:44 mark, Duke's Hamm scored again on an assist by Gilbride to put the Blue Devils back up by two.
UNC then scored the next six goals in a row, taking a lead it would never relinquish. The Tar Heels led by as many as four goals in the first half, but Duke closed the margin to two, 10-8, at halftime.
Carolina opened the second half with consecutive goals by freshman Corey Donohoe and juniors Kelly Taylor and Chelsea Parks to extend its margin to five, equal to the Tar Heels' biggest lead of the game. The closest Duke got in the second half was the two-goal final margin after scoring the last three goals of the game.
Kristen Taylor finished with three goals for UNC as did Kelly Taylor. Senior Erica LaGrow and Parks each scored two, and Donohoe and sophomore Jenn Russell added one each.
For Duke, junior Megan Del Monte led the way with four goals and an assist. Gilbride had three goals and two assists and Hamm added three goals and an assist. Senior Allie Johnson scored twice and Carolyn Davis and Kachulis accounted for one each.
UNC goalkeeper Amanda Barnes, a senior, made seven saves, four of them in the second half. For Duke, starter Kim Imbesi made nine saves and Regan Bosch had one in just under 11 minutes of play.
The Tar Heels were coming off a loss in their ACC opener, a 16-5 defeat at No. 2 Virginia last weekend.
"I'm really happy about how my team played today," Levy said. "Win or lose the game, we really wanted to play well and we've come off a really hard week of practice. The team had a choice of how they were going to respond to the loss last weekend and I think that it's really important that we did what we did today and actually won. We weren't concerned about winning, we were concerned about the quality of our performance, but how we responded was critical to going forward in our season. I think we gained a lot of confidence from the win and we just want to continue to get better."
Next up for the Tar Heels is a home game on Wednesday against ACC rival Virginia Tech.
