Men's Lacrosse Falls At Home To Virginia

Saturday, April 10

Chapel Hill

2:00 PM

North Carolina

8-2 (1-2ACC)

Virginia

9-2 (2-2ACC)

Virginia

North Carolina

The Tar Heels dropped a home game for the first time this season on Saturday, falling 18-16 to Virginia.

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

April 10, 2021 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score Final Stats

By: UNC Athletic Communications

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The No. 3 North Carolina men's lacrosse team dropped a tight Atlantic Coast Conference battle on Saturday afternoon, falling 18-16 to No. 6 Virginia.

The loss at Dorrance Field was the first at home this season for UNC (8-2, 1-2 ACC). Next up for the Tar Heels is a road trip to Syracuse for a matchup with the Orange next Saturday, April 17.

"The ACC is tough – everybody is in the top 10," UNC coach Joe Breschi said. "We've got to work on getting better as we go up to Syracuse next weekend."

Senior midfielder William Perry tied his career high with four goals and the Tar Heels got hat tricks from senior Chris Gray and graduate student Connor McCarthy, who had scored three goals total in the season's first nine games heading into Saturday. Eight different players scored for Carolina.

Perry also led the team in assists with two for a career-high six points on the day.

Ian Laviano and Jeff Conner had four goals each to lead the Cavaliers, who improved to 9-2 overall (2-2 ACC) and avenged a 16-13 UNC win on Charlottesville on March 11.

The teams combined for 30 shots – 15 each – in the first quarter and Virginia led 7-5 when the dust cleared. The Tar Heels opened the game by by capitalizing on the only extra-man opportunity they got all afternoon, with a goal by Gray, assisted by Perry, 65 seconds into the game after a slashing penalty on UVa.

UNC led 3-1 before Virginia scored three goals in less than a minute to take its first lead of the game, 4-3, at the 10:47 mark. After Carolina answered and the teams again exchanged goals, the Cavaliers went back-to-back to end the period with a two-goal lead.

After the feverish start, both teams cooled off in the second quarter, with the Tar Heels scoring two goals on 12 shots and Virginia scoreless on six opportunities. Freshman goalkeeper Collin Krieg made four saves for Carolina to mark the third game in a row that the Tar Heels have held their opponent scoreless in a quarter.

The game was tied 7-7 at halftime and UNC led 10-9 with 4:23 to play in the third quarter after an unassisted goal by Perry. But the Cavaliers went on a run from there, scoring four goals in the final 3:45 of the quarter and adding another 12 seconds into the fourth off the opening face-off to take a 14-10 lead. After that, the teams traded goals through the rest of the game, with UNC never getting closer than three until a man-down goal by Connor Maher with five seconds to play made it 18-16 at the end.

Virginia won 11 of 12 face-offs in the fourth quarter and 26 of 38 for the game, giving the Cavaliers the advantage in possession time.

"Obviously we scored, both goalies were solid, and we did a nice job with the ground ball work, clearing, riding," UNC coach Joe Breschi said. "We just played a lot of defense and we didn't play great defensively.

"At the end of the day I thought we created enough opportunities. Their goalie did a nice job – I thought both goalies were solid."

UVA keeper Alex Rode and UNC's Krieg finished with 15 saves each.

The Tar Heels held the shots advantage 51-44, but Virginia put more shots on goal, 33-31.

UNC was a perfect 19-19 in clears, while Virginia was 20 of 22.