UNC women’s lacrosse edges Virginia with late goal

It seemed like it would be déjà vu for the North Carolina women’s lacrosse team.

Facing No. 7 Virginia, the No. 5 Tar Heels were looking for their first win against a top-10 team in three attempts. Once again, UNC surged to an early lead, going into halftime with a 7-3 advantage.

And once again the opponent stormed back, when Virginia posted a 4-0 run to knot the game at seven.

But this time, the Tar Heels had an answer.

With just under seven and a half minutes to go, UNC senior Sarah Kuonen took the ball at the top of the arc, whirled her way to the front of the crease and netted the decisive goal in UNC’s 8-7 victory Saturday at Fetzer Field.

UNC held the ball for most of the remainder of the game to finish a contest that was a tale of two halves.

“We took opportunities that were there very well,” coach Jenny Levy said. “We played defense very well. I just thought the first half was great.

“The second half … they built some momentum and it took us some time to respond.”

The Tar Heels were sharp in the first half, and the defense succeeded at stifling a Virginia attack that averages more than 12 goals per game.

The offense was also clicking behind freshman Abbey Friend, who scored three goals in her first taste of ACC competition.

“They were really just sliding over a little bit early to Corey (Donohoe) and Becky (Lynch),” Friend said. “I just found the open spots and got the shot off.”

But sloppy play coming out of the break plagued the Tar Heels.

Neither team could manage to run an offensive set or get a good shot on goal in the beginning of the second half. Virginia shook the bug first, capitalizing on a free position shot a little more than seven minutes into the period.

Less than two minutes later, the Cavaliers pulled within one score on back-to-back goals by Charlie Finnigan.

“In the first five minutes we had a few stupid turnovers, and then everything kind of just slowed down,” Donohoe said. “We just needed to keep attacking, and not slowing down and playing our game — not changing to play how they want us to play.”

Another Finnigan score with just less than 11 minutes left capped the run that put Virginia back in the game.

Then came UNC’s late spark.

The Tar Heels ran a long offensive set that opened up Kuonen’s go-ahead goal. The Cavaliers earned a chance to tie the score after forcing a turnover while North Carolina played keep-away, but UNC goalkeeper Lauren Maksym rose to the challenge with a last-minute save.

“Our defense had a great set at the very end and Max (Maksym) had a great save,” Donohoe said. “We kind of slowed down in the second half, but they backed us up in the second half. We needed that, so it was a good team win.”

UNC’s resilience allowed it to notch a win in its first conference game of the season. Levy said it was a great win for the program, but it was even better to see a talented young team develop its toughness.

“We’re a really competitive team here,” Friend said. “We wanted to win. So we just dug down in the last five minutes of the half and made it happen.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.