When the North Carolina women’s tennis team went to sleep early Thursday night in Boston, they were just preparing for a match Friday against Boston College.
They woke up alarmed and shocked with the news from their coach, Brian Kalbas, that the hotel was on lockdown. Kalbas said his supervisor Clint Gwaltney called him around 6:30 Friday morning with the news.
Last night, two suspects from the Boston Marathon bombings shot and killed an MIT police officer and hijacked a car. The suspects are brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Law enforcement shot and killed Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but officials are still currently hunting down Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“We all went to bed early, so none of us heard about it until this morning,” sophomore Caroline Price said. “It was pretty scary, but we feel pretty safe as long as we’re inside.”
To pass the time, Price said the team ate breakfast and lunch together, worked on homework and watched the movie Safe Haven.
“We can’t let it affect us too much,” Price said. “We’re trying to continue doing schoolwork, but it’s always in the back of your head.”
The team is currently waiting in Newton, Mass., which senior Lauren McHale said was about a mile away from Watertown, where police conducted extensive searches Friday morning.
“We are on lockdown still, so it’s scary, but luckily we are OK,” McHale said. “I just want to leave and go back to Chapel Hill.”
After the Boston marathon bombings on Monday, members of the team fielded many questions about the trip to Boston College.