At Full Strength, Carolina Offense Explodes
from press release
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- The North Carolina men's
lacrosse team saw its offense take a huge step forward Saturday
afternoon as the fourth-ranked Tar Heels beat Lehigh 17-5 at Fetzer
Field before a crowd of 752 on a sunny day. UNC attackmen Billy
Bitter, Gavin Petracca and Thomas Wood combined to produce 14 of
UNC's 28 points on the day and sophomore midfielder Jimmy Dunster
had career highs for goals and points in a game with three and
four, respectively.
With the win, the Tar Heels improve to 3-0 on the season heading
into their nationally televised game at Navy next Thursday against
the Midshipmen. Carolina put 17 goals up on the board, one more
than UNC had scored in its first two games combined against
Jacksonville and Bryant.
Junior attackman Billy Bitter had two goals and four assists to
lead the Tar Heels in points with six while sophomore attackman
Thomas Wood had career-high five points on two goals and three
assists. Petracca, seeing his first significant action after
returning from surgery, had three goals on the day, including
back-to-back tallies in the early minutes of the second quarter
when the Tar Heels broke the game open. Tyler Morton had the first
two goals of his UNC career and senior midfielder Sean DeLaney also
added a pair of goals. Adam Johnston led the Lehigh scoring with a
pair of goals.
UNC outshot the Mountain Hawks 45-17 for the game and limited
Lehigh to five shots in the first half. Carolina also dominated the
ground ball category, winning 48 to Lehigh's 29. Defenseman Charlie
McComas led the Tar Heels in ground balls with eight, while
goalkeeper Chris Madalon had six grounders and Thomas Wood had a
career high five.
UNC face-off man Michael Burns, back after missing the Bryant game
with a hip flexor, won nine of 16 face-offs and had three ground
balls and two caused turnovers. Sophomore Mark Staines won four of
his six face-off attempts for UNC. The Tar Heels caused 18
turnovers and Lehigh had 29 turnovers overall. Senior defenseman
Michael Jarvis led the Tar Heels in caused turnovers with
three.
UNC jumped out to a 2-0 lead just 1:16 into the game as Billy
Bitter dished out assists on goals by Chris Hunt and Tyler Morton,
the first of his career, at 13:54 and 13:44 of the first quarter.
Lehigh came back to tie the score at the end of the first quarter.
The Tar Heels than broke the game open with four goals in the
opening five minutes of the second quarter. Jimmy Dunster started
the scoring run 57 seconds into the quarter, followed by goals by
Morton at 13:22, Petracca assisted by Sean Jackson at 12:46 and
Petracca again assisted by Bitter at the 10:23 mark. Sean DeLaney
ended the scoring run for UNC with 8:48 left in the quarter. The
UNC lead stood at five and Lehigh would never get closer than four
goals after that.
Bitter gave the Tar Heels a 9-4 lead seven seconds before halftime
and that started a long scoring run of seven straight that
eventually put the Heels up by a 15-4 with 11:24 to play. Carolina
outscored the Mountain Hawks 5-0 in the third quarter with five
different players -- DeLaney, Chris Layne, Marcus Holman, Petracca
and Dunster scoring the goals. Senior Cryder DiPietro assisted on
the goal by Dunster with three seconds left in the third quarter to
put the Heels up 14-4.
UNC outscored the Mountain Hawks 3-1 in the final quarter as Wood
scored two of his three goals.
Carolina will have five days before meeting the Navy Midshipmen
next Thursday at 7 p.m. at Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in
Annapolis, Md.
