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The Daily Tar Heel

Women's lacrosse gets bad case of ‘the jitters,’ wins

The excitement of starting a new season led to a sloppy, turnover-filled game on Sunday for the No. 4 North Carolina women’s lacrosse team.

But the Tar Heels still won 18-7, defeating an overmatched Denver team.

UNC finished with 17 turnovers, far more than coach Jenny Levy would have liked.

“We don’t really want to have more than 10 turnovers a game, and we had 10 in the first half,” Levy said.

Senior midfielder Megan Bosica, who scored three goals in the game, said the team’s anxiety about of playing its first game caused the lackluster first half.

“It was great to get out there, and today, I guess with the first game, we have a lot of underclassmen in,” Bosica said. “They’re doing a great job, but definitely just first-game jitters.”

Levy also blamed the poor play on first-game nerves.

“We were just jumping-out-of-our-pants excited,” Levy said. “We were getting some really nice breaks down in transition, and I think we were just really antsy and not patient enough.”

The young Denver team, who already had a full game’s experience, also played an unpolished game. The Pioneers committed 22 turnovers.

Because of Denver’s equally messy play and UNC being a superior team, the Tar Heels were able to garner an 11-4 halftime lead despite their turnovers.

“I thought we were really sloppy in the first half,” Levy said. “I thought we probably could have had 16 goals if we had completed and made some different choices.”

UNC cleaned up its play starting in the second half and put the game fully out of reach by scoring four goals within the first five minutes of the half.

The key to the second-half improvement was maintaining the teams’ aggressive play while making smarter decisions.

“We knew we wanted to keep pushing the ball, as far as in transition,” Bosica said. “It was just a different mentality coming out in the second half.”

Coming into the season returning a strong core of players, including 19 from last year’s finalist team, UNC begins play this season with high hopes. But Levy quickly dismissed the notion that outward expectations affect the team’s play.

“There’s no pressure on this group. They have fun. They’re loose. They work hard; they’ve worked hard since the fall,” Levy said. “If we keep that work ethic, then we’ll do really well.”

The Tar Heels said they hope that with the first-game jitters now in the past, they will continue to improve their play the rest of the season.

“Where you start the season doesn’t matter; it’s where you end,” Levy said. “For us, if we focus on process and getting better every day, then we’ll have the success that we want.”



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.

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