UNC spring sports weekend recap

The college spring sports season is in full swing, and several of them are into crunch time. Over this past weekend, North Carolina’s women’s lacrosse and men’s and womens’ tennis teams were in crucial championship-stage games in their seasons, so let’s check in on how they did.

UNC women’s lacrosse has been dominant all season, undefeated and ranked #1. Saturday provided one of their biggest tests of the season in the ACC Championship Game against Boston College, and the Tar Heels passed.

Last year, the Eagles upset Carolina in the NCAA Tournament Final Four, and for a while it looked like BC might do it again. The Heels trailed 6-4 at halftime after their lowest scoring half of the season.

They quickly erased that with a 7-0 third quarter, taking the lead and never looking back. After the bad first half on offense, they put up 12 goals in the second half, winning the game and their sixth straight ACC championship 16-9.

Carolina was led by Scottie Rose Growney and Jamie Ortega, who scored four goals each, with Ortega also recording five assists.

Next up for UNC will the the NCAA Tournament, the field of which will be announced tonight at 9 PM ET. After the undefeated season, the Heels will almost certainly be the #1 overall seed.

Speaking of #1 overall seeds, UNC women’s tennis got the top spot in their NCAA Tournament and opened it with a win in round one on Saturday. Facing South Carolina State, the Tar Heels cruised from beginning to end.

The way the NCAA tennis team tournament works is that each round consists of three doubles matches and six singles matches. Each singles match is worth a point, while whatever school wins two of the three doubles matches also gets a point. Whatever team wins four points first wins the match. The Heels were never in any trouble in their opener, sweeping the points in a 4-0 win.

In the doubles, UNC won two matches by a combined score of 12-1, as they led the third match as well. In singles, they were dominating all six matches with Annika Yarlagadda, Alle Sanford, and Kacie Harvey finishing their matches first to complete the sweep.

In round two, the Tar Heels are set to face off against South Carolina later today. Whenever that concludes, we’ll throw in an update.

Update: UNC cruised to a 4-0 win over South Carolina, booking a place in the Sweet 16. Next up will be the #16 overall seed Florida.

Meanwhile in men’s tennis, UNC advanced to their eight-straight Sweet 16.

On Friday night, the number #15 overall Tar Heels took down Navy 4-1 in the NCAAT first round. After dropping two doubles matches and the doubles point to the Midshipmen, they responded with four quick singles wins to advance to the second round. All four singles winners for the Heels took their matches in straight sets, and Carolina players were leading in the two matches that didn’t finish as well.

The second round on Saturday finished with a similar score line, but it was a much closer battle against Arizona.

UNC took the doubles point to start things off, but the “closest” of the three was a 6-4 win by Carolina’s pair of Peter Murphy and Benjamin Sigouin. Those two plus Brian Cernoch then all managed to record straight-set victory to seal the win, but not before the Wildcats fought hard. Arizona won one of the other singles matches, were leading another, with the last one close in the third set.

Next up for Carolina will be their biggest test so far, as they’re going to take on #2 overall seed Florida. The Gators cruised past New Orleans and Miami 4-0 in their both of their first two NCAAT rounds.