After leading by as many as nine goals in its ACC Tournament semifinal against No. 3 seed Duke, the No. 2 seed North Carolina men’s lacrosse team had given back every one.
With 1:28 left in the game, senior captain Marcus Holman scored to give UNC a 19-18 lead, but in Friday night’s shootout — which boasted the highest combined scoring effort of any game since the ACC Tournament’s inception in 1989 — freshman goalkeeper Kieran Burke was not out of the clear.
In front of 4,567 fans under the lights in Kenan Stadium, Burke rose to the occasion, blocking Duke midfielder David Lawson’s shot with his body to give UNC its first win against Duke in Chapel Hill since March 19, 2003 — the day the United States invaded Iraq.
Duke had beaten UNC in the 16 of their last 17 meetings and would have had the chance to deliver one of the most heart-wrenching losses in UNC program history, if it had forced overtime. None of that weighed on the freshman goalkeeper as he anticipated a shot from Duke, who had a man-advantage for the game’s final 16 seconds after a UNC holding penalty.
“Going on in my head is actually nothing at that point. Total blankness,” Burke said. “I’m just waiting for the play to start, focusing and tracking the ball.”
Burke’s ninth save on the day won him the spotlight, but Friday night’s game was an all-offense affair.
UNC jumped out to a 4-2 lead in the first quarter on goals from attackmen Joey Sankey and Marcus Holman and midfielders Chad Tutton and T.J. Kemp. Tutton had a career-high four goals in the game.
Kemp’s goal, a Hail Mary fling at the first-quarter’s buzzer from well beyond the restraint line, was intended to be a pass, but when Holman let it go by untouched, it found its way to the back of the net.
“We tell the guys, ‘It’s not the play at the end of the game that wins or loses the game. It’s a cumulative of all those little plays over the course of the game,’ Duke coach John Danowski said. “That one play could’ve been the difference in the game.”