North Carolina
Ohio State
Tar Heels Hit Season High In Win Over Ohio State
April 4, 2008 | Women's Lacrosse
April 4, 2008
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - The North Carolina women's lacrosse team reached a season-high for goals Friday evening in rolling to a 22-12 win over visiting Ohio State in the ACC/ALC Challenge at Fetzer Field. Tenth-ranked UNC improved to 9-3 on the season with the win while OSU fell to 6-4.
Tar Heel sophomore Kristen Taylor led her team with a career-high six goals and also added an assist. UNC got three goals each from Julia Ryan, Kelly Taylor, Erica LaGrow and Corey Donohoe, with Chelsea Parks adding two and Megan Bosica and Sarah Kuonen contributing one each. Bosica led the team with five assists, while Parks and Jenn Russell had two each.
"I was really happy with the game," UNC coach Jenny Levy said. "I think Ohio State is really physical and they came at us hard from the opening whistle. We did a good job of getting up on them right away and that set the pace of the game. I thought that was a really great indicator of how we were going to play."
The Tar Heels scored the first six goals of the game, with two by Kelly Taylor, two by Kristen Taylor and two by Ryan. The Buckeyes' first goal was an unassisted shot by Jessica Patane 10 minutes into the game. OSU drew within three, 7-4, on a goal by Kristen Hannon with 7:21 remaining in the half and the score stayed there until the final minutes of the period, but Kristen Taylor scored twice in the final 50 seconds before halftime to put her team up 9-4 at the break.
Ohio State's Kelly Haggerty opened the second-half scoring with a goal at the 28:25 mark to pull her team back within four, but Donohoe's first goal, less than a minute later on an assist by Bosica, put UNC back up by five and the Buckeyes never again got closer than that.
"We shared the ball well - 14 of our 22 goals were assisted," Levy said. "I was really happy with how patient we were and the quality of the shots that we took and also the ball movement to get those shots. That was something that we didn't do very well last weekend and it's also something that we've been working on this week. It definitely paid off. The key for us now is to build."
UNC was coming off a disappointing performance at Boston College on March 29, a 5-4 overtime loss that put the Tar Heels' conference record at 2-2. Carolina's scoring output in that game was the team's lowest of the season.
Prior to the win over Ohio State, North Carolina's previous high for goals this season had been in an 18-6 win over Albany on Feb. 23. The school record is 24, against Longwood on April 15, 2007. The Tar Heels came into Friday's game averaging 12 goals per game.
In the first game of the ACC/ALC Challenge Friday, No. 3 Maryland beat Penn State 12-11 in double overtime, giving ACC teams a sweep of the Day 1 action. On Sunday the teams will switch opponents, with Maryland facing Ohio State at noon and UNC taking on Penn State at 2:30 p.m.
