No Memorial Day heartbreak for Carolina this season.

The No. 1 and undefeated UNC women’s lacrosse program avenged a Final Four defeat from a year ago and earned some hardware in the process, edging No. 3 Boston College 12-11 to win the program’s third national championship and finishing off a 22-0 season.

Head coach Jenny Levy is now one of just five Carolina coaches to win three or more NCAA championships at the school, joining Anson Dorrance (women’s soccer), Karen Shelton (field hockey), Willie Scroggs (men’s lacrosse) and Roy Williams (men’s basketball). The team’s 22 wins this season are also the most in any campaign in program history.

Sam Geiersbach continued her red-hot streak offensively, scoring a hat trick to lead the Tar Heels. Combined with her five-goal quarter in the Final Four against Northwestern, Geiersbach scored eight goals in roughly 65 minutes of game action.

It was Geiersbach who scored the go-ahead goal with 5:26 remaining in the fourth quarter at point-blank range, giving Carolina the lead for the first time since midway through the third quarter. Scottie Rose Growney scored three minutes later to give the Tar Heels a two-goal lead, their biggest since halftime. After Carolina went to the locker rooms up 7-5, the game swung between one-goal deficits for the next 28 minutes until Growney’s dagger.

Though the Tar Heels had a hard time breaking through Boston College’s goalie Rachel Hall, UNC’s Taylor Moreno did more than enough in the cage to keep Carolina in the game. Moreno made 11 saves against the Eagles, including one on all-time NCAA leading scorer Charlotte North with 3:56 remaining. North scored five goals in the game, but saw her potential tying shot denied by UNC’s All-American goalie. It was a superb bounce-back effort from Moreno in her final collegiate game, after she made just five saves against Northwestern in the semifinal.

Jamie Ortega and Ally Mastroianni each scored a pair of goals in their final games as Tar Heels, with Ortega’s extending her own ACC all-time points record.

Carolina controlled the game early, with Geiersbach scoring the first two goals of the game and the Tar Heels netting five in the first 15 minutes. But Hall stood on her head after that, making at least two saves in each of the final three quarters and four in the third. UNC’s ensuing offensive drought allowed the Eagles back into the game, as Boston College went on a 6-2 run which extended into the third quarter. It was North who scored the final two goals of the run within 2:18 of each other to give BC the lead.

The Tar Heel defense locked down the superstar goalscorer after that, as she wouldn’t find the back of the net again. Carolina took a 10-9 lead with 11:04 remaining on what was just Nicole Humphrey’s eighth goal of the season. Boston College tied it again at 10-10 with 9:50 left before Geiersbach broke that tie four minutes later. The Eagles scored once more with 15 seconds left, but could not win the ensuing draw control, allowing the Tar Heels to ice the remaining seconds.

The national championship erases multiple years of postseason heartbreak for Carolina since its last title in 2016, including a Final Four loss to the Eagles last season. The women’s lacrosse program now joins women’s soccer, field hockey, men’s lacrosse and men’s basketball as the only programs at UNC to win three or more NCAA titles.

 

Featured image via UNC Women’s Lacrosse on Twitter

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