Vol. 17: Perfection — UNC Completes Season Sweep of BC, Undefeated Season
Vol. 17: Perfection — UNC Completes Season Sweep of BC, Undefeated Season
The No. 1 Tar Heels beat No. 3 Boston College for the third time this year to claim their third national title and first since 2016.
Grad transfers Andie Aldave (left) and Sam Geiersbach (right) jump in jubilation during UNC’s 12-11 National Championship win over BC. Photo courtesy: UNC Athletics.
A ground ball.
That’s really what separated Boston College and North Carolina in last weekend’s National Championship.
Sam Geiersbach caught a pass from Olivia Dirks in stride, zooming past Hunter Roman. Then she rolled around another BC defender, Sydney Scales, before ripping a laser on cage. It ricocheted off the crossbar, and all chaos ensued.
First, UNC’s Andie Aldave and BC’s Hollie Schleicher fought for the rebound, but they simply redirected the ball toward the far-side post corner of the field. That’s when Roman and Dirks jousted for positioning, with both of them ultimately hitting the turf of Homewood Field. Schleicher made a bee-line for the still-rolling ground ball but overshot it, tripping while trying to scoop it up. Instead, Geiersbach was there to corral it, ending up with her own miss.
Seconds later, the Richmond grad transfer—who scored the final four goals in UNC’s miraculous comeback win over Northwestern in the Final Four—flipped a pass to Scottie Rose Growney. The fifth-year attacker patiently surveyed the field before challenging Scales with a stutter-step move, blowby and shot that escaped BC goalie Rachel Hall.
It was Growney’s only goal of the day, but it gave the Tar Heels a two-goal cushion with 2:23 remaining and, eventually, went down as game-winner. The ending was fitting. Growney represented a class of UNC women’s lacrosse that won ACC Tournament titles every season yet consistently came up short in the NCAA Tournament.
Not this year, though. With Growney’s goal, that class finally claimed an NCAA title. And to do it, the Tar Heels, who have now won 51 of their last 52 games, knocked off the reigning national champions—not once, or twice, but three times in the same season.
Sunday’s 12-11 victory marked head coach Jenny Levy’s program’s first national title since 2016 and third all-time. And the 2022 Tar Heels became the fifth team in the sport since 2000 to complete a perfect season.
Final Four Rewind:
No. 1 UNC pulls off epic comeback against No. 4 Northwestern: After the four quarterfinal matchups saw an average margin of victory of 8.5 goals, UNC and Northwestern delivered one of the most thrilling Final Four games in recent memory. UNC won, 15-14, rounding out a marvelous matchup that featured an electric Wildcats start, a lightning delay and eight straight Tar Heels goals down the stretch.
Geiersbach stole the show. With UNC trailing, 13-5, late in the third quarter, she scored five of the last six goals.
She sprinted in from the right side of the eight-meter arc and fired a shot to pull UNC within one, 14-13. She put the Northwestern defense in a blender with a double spin move and score to tie the game, 14-14. She fought through traffic and sniped a shot into the top-right corner for the game-winner with 1:03 left. Geiersbach finished with a season-high seven points, with five goals and two assists.
Attacker Sam Geiersbach, a grad transfer from Richmond, hits the spin cycle in the Tar Heels’ Final Four win over Northwestern. Photo courtesy: UNC Athletics/Jeffrey A. Camarati.
But she didn’t do it alone. Geierbach’s roommate, Andie Aldave, took the draws starting in the fourth quarter and helped the Tar Heels dominate possession late. Ally Mastroianni had a hat trick, and Jamie Ortega had three goals and three assists.
Early, it was all Northwestern. The Wildcats came out of a cannon in the first quarter, scoring six straight on 10 shots. Jill Girardi and Lauren Gilbert each scored twice. Northwestern looked faster, hungrier, more focused, you name it.
Then, lightning struck close by Homewood Field in Baltimore. After one hour and 35 minutes, the teams resumed play, and Northwestern kept on dominating. The Wildcats stretched their lead to 13-5 with 10:34 left in the third quarter.
The eight-goal comeback was the largest by any team on Championship Weekend since Virginia rallied from nine down to beat Duke in the 2007 Final Four, 14-13.
No. 3 BC gets second all-time win over No. 2 Maryland in dramatic fashion: It wasn’t as unfathomable as UNC’s Houdini act, but the Eagles’ fourth-quarter comeback against the Terrapins was equally exhilarating. BC rebounded from three goals down with 7:13 left to defeat Maryland in the Final Four for the second time in the last five years.
Cassidy Weeks was the hero.
The two-way middie, often overshadowed nationally by BC’s prolific attackers, scored the game-winner with 18 ticks to go. She made a backside cut, reeled in a pass from Caitlynn Mossman, cradled at the crease’s doorstep and beat Maryland goalie Emily Sterling for a thrilling score. Weeks played a hand in the Eagles’ game-tying goal, too. With under four minutes left, she caused a turnover, gobbled up the ground ball and pushed the pace in transition, protecting her stick despite a triple team. That led to a sidearm rip from North that knotted things up at 16-16.
North notched six goals in the come-from-behind victory, including three in the fourth quarter. She was the first to open the scoring gates in the opening frame. BC had control of the game early. The Eagles kicked off the game with six consecutive draw control victories and staked themselves to a 6-3 lead, thanks to a 17-5 shot advantage.
Maryland, which had won its last three postseason games by an average of 12 goals, didn’t roll over. The Terrapins turned the tide in the circle, stacking six straight draws and five goals. The only thing holding back Maryland was turnovers. Head coach Cathy Reese’s team entered the matchup averaging the fewest giveaways per game yet committed 17 against BC.
An Eloise Clevenger reverse shovel shot capped a 4-0 run that carried into the second half when Aurora Cordingley scored 27 seconds into the third quarter. The teams went back-and-forth from there, with Maryland upping its lead to three goals four times in the final frame. That is, before North and the Eagles made their move.
Temple grad transfer defender Courtney Taylor celebrates BC’s 17-16 Final Four victory over Maryland. Photo courtesy: BC Athletics.
National Championship Tid-Bits:
The championship game featured an all-ACC matchup for the second straight tournament. Last year, BC downed Syracuse, 16-10, to take its first-ever crown. The last time back-to-back championships featured teams from the same conference was 2013-14. In 2013, UNC beat Maryland, 13-12, in overtime. In 2014, Maryland got revenge over ACC rival Syracuse, 15-12. The Terrapins did not move to the Big Ten until 2015.
The National Championship featured a familiar matchup, too. UNC beat BC three times in 2022: 16-15 in Chestnut Hill on March 20, 16-9 in the ACC Championship on May 7, and 12-11 in Baltimore on May 29. That’s three wins over the defending national champs. Not bad. Last year, BC’s championship win over Syracuse was the teams’ fourth matchup of the season, but the squads split the season series, 2-2.
The numbers from ESPN’s broadcast of the National Championship are in, and they’re AWESOME. The broadcast averaged 428,000 viewers with a peak viewing audience of 592,000. The game was the most-viewed women’s college lacrosse broadcast ever.
How Did UNC Get Over the Hump in 2022?
UNC already had an uber-talented team, but its transfers completed the puzzle. Aldave (Notre Dame) jumpstarted the Tar Heels’ rally versus Northwestern in the circle. Geiersbach (Richmond) scored UNC’s final four goals in that game and three more in the National Championship. That’s not to mention Olivia Dirks (Penn State), who chipped in 20 goals, five assists and 36 draw controls this season.
Levy was smart about her portal additions. She added scorers who could give the Tar Heels a lift when Jamie Ortega was faceguarded. And she recruited the reigning Big Ten Midfielder of the Year, who bolstered UNC’s draw circle and an already stout defense.
UNC found itself in some pretty tense situations this season. The Tar Heels were down, 5-0, against Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament semifinals. They faced a one-goal deficit late in the third quarter against Stony Brook in the Elite Eight. And, of course, they trailed Northwestern, 14-7, in the final period of their legendary Final Four win. But they found a way.
Not only was UNC well rounded this season—it ranked inside the top six in both scoring offense (16.82 goals per game) and scoring defense (8.50 goals per game)—the Tar Heels were resilient. Deep, too.
Seven different Tar Heels finished the season with 20 or more goals. They had a pair of IWLCA All-American defenders (Emma Trenchard and Emily Nalls) as well as a goalie in Taylor Moreno, who posted 11 saves in the National Championship and tied for the 11th-best save percentage (.493) in the country.
Fifth-year UNC attacker Scottie Rose Growney throws her stick down after scoring the game-winning goal against BC in the National Championship. Photo courtesy: UNC Athletics.
National Championship Numbers to Know:
14 – The one-goal margin of victory last Sunday was the 14th time a NCAA women’s lacrosse championship game has been decided by a single goal. The most recent prior to 2022 came in 2018, when James Madison pulled off the upset over BC, 16-15.
5 – UNC completed the fifth perfect season in the sport since 2000. Maryland did it twice, going 23-0 in 2001 and in 2017. Northwestern also did it twice, going 21-0 in 2005 and 23-0 in 2009.
17 – Charlotte North led all players in scoring in the NCAA Tournament with 17 goals and 21 points. She finished her career with 48 goals, six assists, and 54 points in NCAA Tournament games for BC.
Tewaaraton Award: Queen of the North
Now two-time Tewaaraton Award winner Charlotte North looks to cage during BC’s National Championship loss versus UNC. Photo courtesy: BC Athletics.
Charlotte North might not have repeated as a national champion, but she did become the fifth player in the sport’s history—and first since Maryland’s Taylor Cummings—to repeat as the Tewaaraton Award winner. The other finalists were UNC attacker Jamie Ortega, the ACC’s all-time points leader; UNC’s Ally Mastroianni, the ACC Midfielder of the Year; Marylands’ Aurora Cordingley, the Big Ten Attacker of the Year; and Syracuse attacker Meaghan Tyrrell, a first-team IWLCA All-American for the second season in a row.
North ranked third nationally with 92 goals this season. She led the country with 32 free-position goals, flexing her patented windup, step-and-rip shot from the eight-meter arc.
She registered 16 hat tricks this season, including eight games with five or more goals.
North piled up 17 goals during BC’s fifth straight run to the National Championship, notching three or more in each of the Eagles’ NCAA Tournament games this year.
The Dallas native finished the year third nationally in expected goals added (EGA) per game (5.79), according to Lacrosse Reference. EGA is an advanced metric that measures a player’s productivity, regardless of position. Cordingley (24th, 4.10 EGA per game) was the next Tewaaraton finalist in that category.
North tied her previous single-season career high with 23 assists this season. She first logged that many feeders in 2019, her final year with Duke.
Additionally, North won 139 draw controls this year. That’s good for eighth nationally.
She ends her illustrious college career with the most goals (358) in NCAA history
North was the first pick in this year’s Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse College Draft
THANK YOU!
That’ll do it. Thank you for reading this season! If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with your friends and family. It’s been a pleasure covering this ever-growing sport another year and continuing to build Quick on the Draw.