MAY MADNESS WOMEN


RIPE FOR A REPEAT


After proving you don’t necessarily need experience to win an NCAA championship, North Carolina has shown you don’t necessarily need experience to defend one. The Tar Heels raced out to an 11-1 start. And while senior Abbey Friend is the headliner (41 goals, 14 assists through 12 games), North Carolina has been bolstered by freshmen Sydney Holman, Carly Reed and Maggie Bill. Bill and Molly Hendrick, also a freshman, have solidifi ed a midfi eld that was hit hard by graduation and then lost Brittany Coppa, Kelly Devlin and NCAA title game-winning scorer Sammy Jo Tracy to injuries. Bill knows how diffi cult it will be for the Tar Heels to repeat. She played in 12 games for the North Carolina women’s soccer team that failed to do so last fall.


“Having the experience of seeing us lose in the quarterfi nals, and just watching everyone’s faces, and especially the seniors’ and how devastating it was, and


seeing


the videos of how exciting it was to win last year, that gives us motivation to keep it going,” Bill said. Goalie Megan


Ward, the NCAA championship hero as a freshman starter for the Tar Heels last year, is still starting, but current freshman Caylee Waters has played her way into a timeshare. Will coach Jenny Levy turn to Waters in crunch time?


“In the recruiting process, we’re really clear if you’re ready to play and get on the fi eld, we’re excited to get you on the fi eld,” Levy said.


— J.F . 46 LACROSSE MAGAZINE May 2014>>


“When I became the head coach, I looked at the experiences I had as a player and what brought me the most happiness playing,” said Walker, who played at Maryland and for Team USA and coached as an assistant at Northwestern and UMass. “That alone allows players to feel good, so they can get better and compete. I brought in some visualization and meditation that we used at Maryland. I tried to bring the loose but competitive atmosphere at practice. That’s what always made Maryland special. Practices were loose and fun, but you were always learning and competing.” Walker also played for 13 years in the U.S. team system. “There are different coaching philosophies that work,” she said. “I immediately implemented what I felt was successful. The girls make everything come to life.”


Boston College has always been at the bottom of the ACC and before that, the Big East. In fi ve years


in the Big East, Boston College never won more than two conference games. The same held true in the ACC until last year, when the Eagles beat Virginia Tech, Virginia and Duke, the last two in back-to-back games during a 12-8 season that yielded their second NCAA tournament appearance. They lost to Dartmouth in the fi rst round. “Acacia delivers the message we don’t want to be a team on the rise anymore, we want to be a team on the map,” Stanwick said. “We’re working hard to do that.”


Has Boston College arrived? It’s tough to tell in a dog-eat-dog conference that became especially stacked with the additions of Notre Dame and Syracuse. The Eagles opened the season by upsetting the Irish 15-10 in South Bend, but fell short in losses to Syracuse (11- 9), defending NCAA champion North Carolina (14-13) and Maryland (10-9) — the top three teams in Division I and the ACC at the time.


Boston College, which will host the ACC tournament April 24-27, came closer than anyone to knocking off North Carolina and Maryland in the fi rst two months of the season. Both games went down to the wire. “In years past, we would have crumbled,” Walker said. Stanwick headlines an experienced group that returned largely intact from


A Publication of US Lacrosse


©BRYCE VICKMARK (AW); ©JEFFREY CAMARATI/UNC (MB)


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