NCAA CHAMPIONs


Whether they try to avoid it, or not think about it, or feel it, it’s there. This year, it wasn’t. Somebody told me the probability of us winning the national championship when the bracket came out was 3 percent. You talk about no pressure.” But determination? Yes. Moments large and small led the Tar Heels to play championship-caliber team-ball in front of 26,749 spectators on the season’s final day. It started informally last August in the basement of an off-campus house on Longview Street in Chapel Hill, N.C., where many North Carolina men’s and women’s lacrosse players live during their time at school. Four months removed from what senior midfielder Patrick Kelly described as an “incredibly embarrassing” 14-7 loss to Maryland in the 2015 quarterfinals that looked over almost as soon as it started, the returning seniors, juniors and sophomores aired grievances before a welcome- back night out. Are you all in?


“If not, we don’t need people on this team,” Kelly said. “We’re already not as close to as talented as we were last year. What’s another player or two?” It continued in another basement seven months later — at a historic hotel in


38 LACROSSE MAGAZINE » July/august 2016


Massachusetts after a 14-9 loss at UMass dropped the Tar Heels’ record to 3-3. Breschi asked the seniors and captains Kelly, short- stick defensive midfielder Jake Matthai, and junior defensemen Austin Pifani and Mark Rizzo to stay behind on the bus back after the game. “What’s going on guys?” Breschi asked. Redshirt freshman midfielder Mike D’Alessandro, who wasn’t even playing, delivered the most powerful statements during the 90-minute, cathartic in- person group chat that followed. D’Alessandro, who had planned to play football at North Carolina too, has undergone four knee surgeries in the last three years, on his left and right ACLs and a meniscus. “Watching you guys play soft is terrible,” D’Alessandro said, tears streaming down his face. “I’d die to be on that field. I don’t know if I’ll ever play again. I don’t see anybody diving to check people, diving for ground balls, bodying people up. It’s making me sick, you guys taking it for granted.” Pifani poured his heart out about what the Carolina jersey meant. Offensive coordinator David Metzbower silently steamed, battling the flu. “We didn’t have any prima donnas anymore after that,” he said.


By the Numbers 


Combined faceoff winning percentage by Duke’s Kyle Rowe (23-for-31) and Denver’s Trevor Baptiste (20-for-22) in first-round losses to Loyola and Towson, respectively. A good showing at the X remains a valuable asset, but only in the hands of an offense that makes the most of it.


A Publication of US Lacrosse


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