UNC men's lacrosse beats No. 1 Maryland 10-8

All season long, North Carolina men’s lacrosse coach Joe Breschi has been preaching that success comes from a full 60 minutes of great play. And against a top-ranked Maryland team, that maxim was more important than ever.

A quick start on offense supplemented by the team’s best defensive performance of the season helped No. 14 UNC top the Terrapins 10-8 Saturday, giving the Tar Heels their biggest win so far this season.

“We knew that 40 percent of their offense came in the first quarter. Our number one key to the game was to get off to a quick start,” Breschi said. “We kind of beat them at their own game so to speak.”

Breschi said the Tar Heels knew going into the game that they would need a strong start to defeat the second-best scoring offense in the nation.

And that’s just what they did.

With five goals in the first quarter, the Tar Heels gave themselves a lead they never relinquished, and held Maryland’s usually strong first-quarter offense to only two goals.

Maryland worked its way back into the game late, but recovering from a 9-3 deficit proved too much for the Terrapins.

On defense, UNC’s strong start began with early saves by freshman goalkeeper Kieran Burke, who said the Maryland players began the game shooting high, which played to his strength.

Those relatively easy saves early on for Burke helped him get into a rhythm, and from then on, Burke said it didn’t matter where they shot.

“They got me hot and I continued it throughout the entire game,” Burke said. “If they had started off shooting low, the game might have been different, but they didn’t.”

With 15 saves, Burke was a major part of the defensive success, but he wasn’t the only one that was putting in work for the Tar Heels.

Burke said that by using two long pole defensemen to guard Maryland’s best offensive midfielders, UNC was able to shut down the Terrapins’ offense.

“That made them not as lethal dodging-wise because it’s harder to dodge against a pole,” Burke said. “The double-pole helped a lot in that we didn’t need to slide as much to the (midfielders) which were their main threats.”

On the other end of the field, eight goals and four assists between UNC’s three starting attackmen allowed the Tar Heels to reach double digits for the sixth time in eight games this season.

Though sophomore Jimmy Bitter has had a tough past couple of weeks, he was determined to come out strong against the Terrapins, and he did just that by scoring twice and leading UNC with three assists.

Fellow sophomore Joey Sankey matched his career-high, which he set Monday against Dartmouth, with four goals, and senior captain Marcus Holman complemented his teammates with two goals and one assist.

“When all three of us are playing well, our offense will be extremely difficult to stop,” Bitter said. “We’re all capable of putting up big points.”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.