Tar Heels down No. 4 Florida

With five minutes left to play and North Carolina on its way to an 11-9 victory, flurries began to fall on the women’s lacrosse game against Florida.

Moments earlier, the sun had been shining brightly. Moments later, it was shining again.

Perhaps the weather had decided to echo the topsy-turvy contest between No. 3 UNC and No. 4 Florida on Fetzer Field, which featured six yellow cards, 31 turnovers and 16 free-position shots.

Eventually, the Tar Heels were able to overcome what, at times, seemed like over-careful officiating to win their season opener on Saturday.

“I think it’s really frustrating as a player to hear the whistle blowing all the time because you just want to play,” said junior midfielder Kara Cannizzaro, who notched four goals for UNC. “But the whistles are going to blow, so you have to take them in stride.”

Florida capitalized on whistle-blowing early. The Gators converted on two free-position shots in the first two minutes to take an early 2-0 lead. Undaunted, UNC tore off a 7-1 run to finish the half.

UNC’s Abbey Friend scored twice in the first half and three more goals came from Cannizzaro, the third of which was a unassisted strike that found the net as time expired.

But UNC was unable to use that as an impetus to close out the game early in the second half. Florida again scored two early goals in the period and brought itself back within striking distance.

“The swing in momentum in the second half had to do with us not picking up ground balls and turning over the ball,” coach Jenny Levy said.

“I have no problem turning over the ball off of a good offensive play that just didn’t hit or something like that, but we had a hard time just digging out a ground ball and getting it up.”

As a result, the Gators were able to hang around. With 2:49 remaining, they closed the gap to 11-9. And as Florida had proven earlier, scoring two or more goals in that time was far from inconceivable.

But thanks in part to goalkeeper Lauren Maksym’s scrappy play outside the crease and 10 saves in goal, the Tar Heels hung on for the win.

“All week, we knew the players that were going to go to goal, and we worked hard preparing for each and every one of them,” Maksym said. “We wanted to play our defense. We didn’t want to play Florida lacrosse.”

For UNC’s defense, that meant thwarting Florida’s first-team All-American attacker Kitty Cullen.

“If you don’t contain her, she’s able to put six to eight goals on you just dodging one-on-one,” Levy said.

UNC held her to three.

Careful shot selection by the offense contrasted with Florida’s approach of bombarding the cage with shots. The Tar Heels scored 11 goals on 20 shots. Only two of those were off free-position opportunities.

By comparison, Florida scored four of its nine from free-position shots and took 25 shots in all.

“Our attack, I think, personally, is one of the best in the country,” Cannizzaro said. “We all can ball-handle, and it allows us to have wide open shots, and pick and choose where we want to go to goal.”

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