NCAA CHAMPIONs That meeting set the tone for the
Tar Heels’ turnaround, but still much on-field work remained for a team that was probably more talented than most realized, with 20 former high school All- Americans and preseason top-10 status. Metzbower, who previously won six NCAA titles as an assistant at Princeton, continued to bring along converted midfielders Cloutier, who couldn’t beat a short stick, and Steve Pontrello on attack — they were the Bitter and Sankey replacements, even though Kelly admitted feeling angry after filling Bitter’s lefty role all fall, only to be told he’d play midfield in the spring. His quickness was more valuable there. Former scout teamer Brian Cannon later joined the second midfield at Breschi’s request. He scored three goals in the final four. Assistant coach Brian Holman worked with Balkam, the hopeful permanent goalie replacement for Kieran Burke, who elected to leave the team in the offseason. Balkam was pulled from what became a key 17-16 win over Duke on April 1, and almost yanked from others. Pifani, the team’s top cover defenseman, and Matthai, the leaders of the defense, clashed at times in recent seasons. The pair of opinionated personalities, one direct and loud and the other usually using a soft touch, now were on the same page. Good thing, because starting defenseman Zach Powers broke his arm against the Blue Devils and didn’t return until the postseason.
Even after the watershed post-UMass meeting, when intensity in practice and games picked up and playing time was laid out for all, the Tar Heels didn’t exactly set the lacrosse world on fire. They went 5-3 in the next eight games. And although that included a magical comeback from down five goals in the fourth quarter to beat then-No. 1 Notre Dame to give the Tar Heels’ NCAA tournament hope, the co-ACC regular-season champs also ended April with a 10-7 loss to Syracuse in the ACC semis. Afterward, faceoff man Stephen Kelly barked a reminder of what was at stake: “We need to make history!” When North Carolina learned it made the tournament field May 1, the Tar Heels went dry. No drinking during playoffs, the captains decreed. “I came here not to party, not to do drugs, none of that stuff,” said freshman midfielder Timmy Kelly, Patrick’s brother. “We came here to win championships. If you didn’t have it in mind, see you later.” Looking at the 18-team bracket, Breschi noted that if North Carolina won
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its first-round game, which it did 10-9 at Marquette, for the quarterfinals he would return to Columbus, Ohio, where he worked as Ohio State head coach for 11 years and started a family. “Lacrosse is supposed to be fun,” Breschi is one to say, and generally he gives off a bubbly, positive vibe. His daughters taught him to dab and the nay nay, too. He spent a lot of the morning of the championship game bear-hugging players on the fifth floor of their Philadelphia hotel as they headed to breakfast, yelling, “Let’s go!” But upon arrival in Ohio on May 21, things were different. “I was fine the whole week, but once we got there, it all starts coming back to you,” Breschi said. Breschi had been back several times, to remember his first-born, Michael, killed at age 3 in a tragic accident. Twelve years ago, in a preschool parking lot, Judy Breschi was buckling one of his siblings into the family minivan when a sport-utility vehicle backed up and struck Michael. He is buried 15 miles north of Ohio
State’s iconic Horseshoe, where the Tar Heels and Notre Dame would play the next day. Breschi arranged for Buckeyes coach Nick Myers, his friend and former assistant, to drive him there. Holman joined. They stayed for 30 minutes. “Thank you for bringing me home and letting me go see my son,” an emotional Breschi told the team that Saturday night. The next morning at breakfast, Patrick Kelly dedicated to their coach’s son what came next: a 13-9 win over the Fighting Irish that advanced North Carolina to the final four. Breschi broke down in a post- game TV interview. Congratulatory text messages flooded his phone. “Sorry for taking so long,” he replied.
Looking back, it feels like a foregone conclusion North Carolina would win two more games after sending the quarterfinal elephant in the room packing. After beating Loyola 18-13 in the semifinals, the championship ended in storybook fashion. Starting OT man down, North Carolina players raised their thumbs up. That’s the gesture Michael Breschi made when his dad used to put him to bed. Powers’ swan dive to defend the ensuing shot that Balkam stopped was “a picture of our season,” D’Alessandro said. And Cloutier’s waist- level lefty rip, off a Mike Tagliaferri skip pass, set off the celebration that marked the final frame. In the most unexpected year, and as Breschi said aloud for days after, North Carolina won the national championship.
July/August 2016 » LACROSSE MAGAZINE 41
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