As the third-ranked UNC men’s lacrosse team opened its 2017 season with three consecutive wins by a margin of nearly eight goals per game, head coach Joe Breschi’s Tar Heels looked like a well-oiled machine dead set on repeating as national champions.

Their first big test of the season came on Saturday against No. 5 Johns Hopkins in front of a great crowd at Fetzer Field.

The Blue Jays were none too interested in a coronation, however, taking the lead just over a minute into the game–before pulling away for a 13-5 blowout victory that snapped a seven-game UNC win streak dating back to 2016.

Senior midfielder John Crawley scored four goals for Johns Hopkins, which improved to 4-0 this season–with a pair of wins over teams from last year’s Final Four in UNC and Loyola.

Goalie Gerald Logan also played a huge role in shutting down the explosive Tar Heel attack, recording 16 saves.

UNC received a pair of goals from junior attacker Chris Cloutier, while Stephen Kelly, Brian Cannon and William Perry each added one of their own.

Perhaps the most notable statistic for the Tar Heels was the fact that Luke Goldstock and Michael Tagliaferri–two of the team’s most productive players–were both held completely scoreless, without a goal or an assist.

One of the main keys to UNC’s national title run last season was its proficiency in the faceoff circle, something that helped the team earn extra possessions. Saturday’s game saw the Tar Heels win 14 of the 21 faceoffs, but it still didn’t matter.

Johns Hopkins was simply clicking on all cylinders throughout the entirety of the day, even rattling off five goals in a five-minute span during the fourth quarter.

For the Tar Heels moving forward, there won’t be too much time to feel sorry for themselves.

The schedule calls for a trip to Colorado next weekend to take on Denver, which is the No. 1 ranked team in America.

That game will go a long way towards showing the true potential of this year’s UNC squad, with the loss to Johns Hopkins likely to provide extra motivation now–as if it was even necessary to begin with.

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