No. 4 UNC Hands No. 3 Harvard Its First Loss, 17-7

Things went south for No. 3 Harvard against No. 4 North Carolina Sunday, as the Tar Heels handed the Crimson its first defeat of the season, 17-7.

The game took place at a neutral site, Archbishop Spalding High School in Severn, Md.

With No. 1 Notre Dame falling this past Saturday to an unranked Virginia, North Carolina certainly has a chance to hop No. 2 Richmond for the top-ranked spot in the country.

Carolina’s junior attackman Owen Duffy found the back of the net seven times on a day where the Tar Heels dominated possession.

Harvard’s starting FOGO Owen Umansky remained out with an injury on Sunday, and the Crimson struggled in his absence, winning just four of the game’s 27 faceoffs against a North Carolina team that leads the country in faceoff percentage.

“They just dominated possessions and possession time,” said head coach Gerry Byrne. “Listen, we can make improvements at the faceoff to allow us to earn back some possessions. But we also didn’t clear very well when we got stops on defense, and when we picked up some groundballs, we didn’t escape with them. We knew that all of those things were going to be really important, and that fueled some of their runs today.”

Defensively, Harvard allowed its most goals and shots of the season, while losing the groundball battle 44-29.

“I think that the defense as a unit today did not step up to the level that we needed to be at,” said senior defenseman Charlier Muller. “UNC has a lot of fire power. They could put lines together with some of the most talented players in the country, and we needed to step up and be at a level to compete. Obviously, we did play a lot of defense, but that’s not an excuse. We should’ve done better, and I think that’s big coming up.”

When Harvard did get the ball, the Crimson’s offense was uncharacteristically inefficient. The team’s shooting percentage for the game was .200, compared to its .375 average prior to the game.

“We just need to stay composed and control what we can control,” said senior attack Teddy Malone. “It can be hard to do that when you’re falling behind in a game and you want to score to stay in it, but it’s important to stay true to our core offensive values.”

Harvard’s unblemished 8-0 record entering the game was its best start to a season since 1961, when it began 10-0. The Crimson has defeated No. 15 Penn, No. 20 Boston University, and then-No. 1 Syracuse, the first win in program history over a top-ranked team.

The matchup against the Tar Heels was Harvard’s third contest in just ten days.

North Carolina’s only loss of the season came while it was ranked first in the nation, when it suffered an 11-9 defeat against No. 7 Princeton. So far this spring, the Tar Heels have defeated No. 11 Johns Hopkins, No. 15 Penn, and No. 10 Penn State.

Duffy opened the game with a score for North Carolina. The Tar Heels added another one on a man-up opportunity for an early 2-0 lead.

Speidell capitalized on Harvard’s first possession to put the Crimson on the board.

Duffy tacked on another one as North Carolina continued to dominate possession. The Tar Heels’ 55.6-percent share of time-of-possession this season ranks second in the country.

Despite losing all five faceoffs in the first quarter, the Crimson found itself trailing by only two goals at the end of the first quarter.

Harvard was not nearly as lucky in the second quarter.

Captain Logan Ip fired a left-handed laser to open the second and cut the deficit to one.

Duffy, senior midfielder James Matan, and sophomore midfielder Mason Szewczyk each struck to extend Carolina’s lead to four.

After a dive from freshman midfielder Callan McLaughlin to steal possession following a wide Carolina shot, senior attack John Aurandt IV stormed to the net on the fast break to stop the bleeding. All season, Harvard has excelled at beating offenses to backup shots, and Sunday afternoon was no exception, stealing four possessions in the first half.

Despite Harvard’s hustle, the Tar Heels scored four unanswered to give Carolina a daunting 10-3 lead entering the half.

The first half was ultimately a story of possession dominance by North Carolina. The Tar Heels led 25-14 in groundballs at halftime and outshot the Crimson 30-16.

Harvard won its first faceoff of the game with seven minutes remaining in the second quarter. It finished the half trailing 2-13 in the battle at the center circle.

With the shot clock winding down, junior attack Owen Dixon scored a soul-crushing goal for the Tar Heels to temper any hopes for Harvard early in the third quarter.

Freshman defenseman Jack Weissenburger came up with a pole goal to give the Crimson a spark.

Speidell ripped a deep sidearm shot to make it 11-5.

Duffy got yet another one to swing the momentum back in Carolina’s favor.

Speidell then fired a behind-the-back goal while a man up to keep Harvard in it, only for Duffy to make it 13-6 at the end of the third quarter.

Malone gave the Crimson something to work with midway through the fourth, but junior attack Dominic Pietramala responded for the Tar Heels with a quick goal.

Carolina nabbed three more goals before the whistle to prevail by a final score of 17-7.

“I think it’s a good reminder that we’re not invincible,” said Malone. “And although you never want a loss to happen, sometimes it’s necessary to happen so you can really look yourself in the mirror to see what is and isn’t working.”

“We’re not dissuaded by this game,” said Muller. “If anyone in the country thinks that this loss is going to make us feel less confident in the lacrosse we play, they’re completely wrong. This is gonna fire us up, and it’s going to be a propellant for the future. We just gotta stay down and practice, keep putting in the work, and I think we’ll be A-OK.”

The Tar Heels’ schedule doesn’t get any easier in the next few weeks as they enter the gauntlet of ACC play, with matchups against No. 5 Syracuse, No. 1 Notre Dame, Virginia, and No. 6 Duke on the horizon.

Harvard, meanwhile, will resume Ivy League play next week as it hosts Brown (5-4) in Cambridge, Mass., on Saturday at 1 p.m. EDT.

“We won some really good games in the out-of-conference schedule,” said Byrne. “That put us in a really good place relative to an NCAA tournament bid.

“But Brown is always a battle. It’s been a one-goal game the last four years. So we’ve already begun to prepare for that, and I’ll take my lessons from today’s game,” the coach added.

The Bears are arguably the worst team in the Ancient Eight this season, hopefully providing the Crimson with a respite before it concludes its season against its rival Yale, No. 7 Princeton, and No. 9 Cornell.

—Staff writer Maxwell P. Friedman can be reached at [email protected].