CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Fifteen minutes.
On Saturday, that’s all it took to swing the ACC women’s lacrosse championship game, to keep an increasingly absurd list of streaks alive and to secure North Carolina’s position as the unquestioned No. 1 team in the nation.
The top-seeded Tar Heels ran past second-seeded Boston College at Dorrance Field 16-9 to win their sixth consecutive ACC championship and extend a run that’s seem them win 53 of their last 55 games.
In all but securing the NCAA tournament’s No. 1 overall seed ahead of Sunday’s bracket reveal, UNC also tied Maryland for the most consecutive conference tournament championships in ACC history.
And key in that victory, UNC’s 18th in a row in ACC tournament play, was a third-period crescendo in which the Tar Heels netted seven goals and allowed none to the Eagles across 15 dominant minutes.
“People will say, ‘Oh, it’s six in a row,’ but I don’t want to cheapen this one … it’s hard to be here and hard to get here and hard to finish, especially against such a great BC team,” UNC coach Jenny Levy said.
“We knew they were going to be shooting hard, doing what BC normally does,” goalie Taylor Moreno said. “To see how we can how well we can adjust and adapt, especially going down, was awesome.”
In a matchup of the country’s No. 1 and No. 2 programs, UNC came out of pregame warmups flat hosting the conference championship game on its home field. Boston College held leads of 3-1 in the first period, 4-2 in the second period and 6-4 at halftime, with fifth-year dynamo Charlotte North leading a balanced attack. North, who had three goals and one assist, tied Stony Brook’s Courtney Murphy for first in Division I history with 341 career goals.
Goalie Rachel Hall was also excellent with six first-half saves.
“Everyone was just kind of standing around,” Levy said, “and I didn’t know why were doing what we were doing … we worked through it a little bit in the locker room and told people what we wanted.”
And what did she and her staff want?
“To play unselfish,” Levy said. “No hero ball. Everybody had to step up.”
Fittingly it was Jamie Ortega, the decorated fifth-year attacker, who started UNC’s turning of fortunes with a goal 66 seconds into the third period. That solo strike pushed her past Maryland’s Jen Adams for the most points in ACC history. Adams had 445 points from 1998-2001; Ortega ended Saturday with 451 after producing four goals and five assists.
“It’s such an honor to even be in the same sentence as [her],” said Ortega, who led UNC with nine points en route to her second career ACC tournament MVP award.
Her teammates followed with the type of flurry UNC’s grown used to in this fruitful three-year stretch that also includes 31 straight home wins, 41 straight regular-season wins and 45 wins over its last 46.