NCAA CHAMPIONs
T By the Numbers
Players with the surname Kelly that were final four factors. Brown’s Jack Kelly made 14 saves in the Bears’ overtime loss to Maryland in the semifinals. Connor Kelly scored four goals in the Terps’ loss to North Carolina in the championship. The Tar Heels have deep Kelly family ties with brothers Patrick (27 goals, 11 assists in 2016) and Timmy (10 goals, eight assists) and cousin Stephen (249-for-434 on faceoffs).
laxmagazine.com
he ghosts of North Carolina teams of the past quarter century — the talk of not winning the big game and why — were nowhere to be found at 4:35
p.m. on Memorial Day in the visiting locker room at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Joe Breschi’s last dab, the Cam Newton- inspired dance that made the Tar Heels’ coach Internet famous a week earlier after the program broke a 23-year final four drought, brushed those bad vibes out for another generation. “Dad’s like the dab guy
now,” Breschi’s wife, Judy, said, standing nearby with three of the couple’s four daughters. They had just celebrated on the field of the NFL’s Eagles. “I cried … and I cried again,” 10-year-old Lucy said to no one in particular. Most of the 46 members of the 2016 edition of the Tar Heels gathered in the center of the long room, doing a dance of their own, gyrating in unison to house music. Equipment, sweaty Carolina blue jerseys and other garments were scattered about, soaked after North Carolina’s epic
14-13 overtime win against top-seeded Maryland in an instant classic title game. “We just won the national championship!” Breschi said, as if he couldn’t believe it. At his locker, sophomore attackman Luke Goldstock, whose unsportsmanlike conduct penalty with 3.9 seconds left in the fourth quarter nearly cost North Carolina the game, felt equal parts shock: “It’s unbelievable.” To his right, sophomore goalie Brian Balkam had already placed the events in perspective. He absorbed an extra-man opportunity shot from Terps midfielder Connor Kelly on the first possession of overtime to his, er, midsection. “We’ll call it that,” Balkam said, “I think everyone knows where, though.” Then a relatively unknown, soft- spoken left-handed sophomore from Canada, Chris Cloutier, sniped in a man-up OT winner from 13 yards for his NCAA tournament-record 19th goal. It happened just 32 seconds after Maryland goalie Kyle Bernlohr denied Cloutier after a series of stick fakes on the doorstep, with a gravity-defying stop that looked as if Bernlohr netted a striped bass from over his right shoulder. Neither side led by more than two
July/August 2016 » LACROSSE MAGAZINE 35
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