The No. 8 seed UNC men’s lacrosse team (10-5, 3-1 ACC) lost, 13-10, to Richmond (14-3, 5-0 A10) in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday afternoon at Dorrance Field.
After surrendering only two goals on eleven shots in the first half, the Tar Heels gave up 11 goals on 19 shots in the second half. Sophomore attackman Owen Duffy and redshirt sophomore Dominic Pietramala combined for six of North Carolina’s 10 goals and graduate goalkeeper Michael Gianforcaro made 10 saves on 23 shots.
“Thankful for our seniors and [graduate] students who just had a terrific year,” head coach Joe Breschi said. “Don’t want to lose sight of the success that this group had.”
The Tar Heels struck first when Duffy found an open junior attackman James Matan, who dove to find the back of the net to take a 1-0 lead.
Duffy started the scoring for the Tar Heels in the second quarter, ripping a shot top corner to increase North Carolina’s lead to 4-0.
The Spiders responded, cutting the deficit back to three, following a goal from Lucas Littlejohn from outside the crease.
But the Tar Heels had the answer in the form of a Duffy top-shelf goal on a pass from graduate midfielder Spencer Wirtheim.
Richmond didn’t back down, making no mistake on their own top corner finish from Gavin Creo, cutting the deficit to three again.
At halftime, UNC held on to a 5-2 lead.
It did not take long for the Spiders to continue where they left off. Lukas Olsson ripped a shot for Richmond’s first goal of the second half under two minutes in, cutting the lead down, 5-3.
“I think the quick goals out of the half, momentum,” Breschi said about the differences between halves. “They made some plays, I think one snuck by [Gianforcaro], another one was a quick restart and they scored a layup.”
UNC’s passing on the man advantage resulted in a wide open Pietramala in front of the net who scored to lead the Tar Heels to 6-5.
Duffy bounced off his defender to give UNC a two goal lead with over six minutes remaining in the third quarter.
The Spiders answered with a goal of their own on a shot from Max Merklinger less than a minute later, 7-6.
But that didn’t last long. First-year Parker Hoffman ran nearly half the field to give the Tar Heels a two-point lead.
Less than two minutes later, Richmond’s Charlie Packard netted two goals to tie the game 8-8 with a little over three minutes remaining in the third quarter.
A tic-tac-toe sequence for North Carolina resulted in a net-front goal from junior attackman Matt Wrede to hand the lead back to the Tar Heels.
Merklinger tied the game, 9-9, with less than three seconds remaining in the quarter with a long bounce shot from outside the attack zone.
UNC retook the lead courtesy of Pietramala, who slipped past his defender and shot over the goalkeeper’s head.
But Richmond re-tied the game with Littlejohn’s fourth goal of the game less than one minute later. And a wide open Olsson scored on a side-arm shot to give the Spiders their first lead of the game, 11-10.
With a less than five minutes remaining, Daniel Picart extended the Spiders lead to two. The Spiders added one more late goal.
