Checks Cashed: UNC Completes Perfect Season with National Championship

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — For the first time in a long time, North Carolina was down. With essentially their entire starting lineup injured, the 2024 Tar Heels were in such a pinch that they turned to a field hockey player and a club lacrosse player to help at practice.

That led to a surprising number of unknowns for a team that’s had surprisingly few of them during its lengthy run at or near the top of the women’s lacrosse world. So, changes were made. Head coach Jenny Levy and her staff reset their standards — namely ACC and national championships — and instead focused on fundamentals and culture.

For all intents and purposes, it was a retooling season that was at first unwelcome. A year later, it was very much appreciated.

Infused by a wave of must-see youth and anchored by a core group of veterans just grateful to be on the field again, North Carolina completed an undefeated season Sunday afternoon at Gillette Stadium, finishing off its fourth national championship in program history with a 12-8 win over Northwestern.

And how fitting that a record-breaking crowd of 14,423 was on hand to witness the record-setting North Carolina offense that never relented over the course of the spring.

“It gives you a sense of gratitude,” said sophomore goalie Betty Nelson, who was named to the All-Tournament team following her eight-save performance against the Wildcats. “I know I was injured, Chloe [Humphrey] was injured, Ashley [Humphrey] got injured. You show up every day, and you’re just like, ‘Wow,’ and in awe of what we’re able to do.”

Nelson and the record-shattering Humphrey sisters were just two key players bitten by the injury bug. All-American Brooklyn Walker-Welch went down and missed the season. So did Kaleigh Harden and Marissa White.

It was very much a patchwork operation, yet one that instilled plenty of confidence. Chloe Humphrey, lauded as the nation’s top incoming freshman only for her first year on the field to be delayed until 2025, kept confident.

“Honestly, yes,” she said when asked if she could have believed this to be possible just a year ago. “I think there were a lot of people on the sideline with me that would have contributed to a national championship, so it’s so awesome.”

In terms of contributors, few made a larger impact than the youngest Humphrey sister. As a redshirt-freshman, Humphrey took the nation by storm, finishing with a single-season program record 90 goals and becoming the first freshman to be named a Tewaaraton Award finalist.

She broke the ice for North Carolina (22-0) on Sunday, finishing a feed from Caroline Godine while falling in traffic to tie the score at 1 early in the first quarter. Kate Levy then barreled down the alley for a 2-1 lead, and Godine pranced around her defender with a hesitation step back near the crease for a 3-1 lead at the end of the first quarter.

White and Chloe Humphrey capped the 5-0 run with goals of their own to lead 5-1 with 9:17 left in the first half. Taylor Lapointe’s goal for Northwestern with 6:54 left in the half brought the deficit to 5-2, where it remained going into the break.

It was the lowest-scoring half for both teams all season as the defenses and goalies kept quality shots at a premium. Delaney Sweitzer played a spirited game for Northwestern (19-3), making a program-record 17 saves and keeping the Wildcats from falling out of it completely.

“I came into this game knowing I already won no matter what the results were,” said Sweitzer, a graduate transfer from Syracuse. “I love this sport. I got a bonus year. [The coaching staff] took a chance on me and brought me into this program for a really short time, so I knew I was going to leave it all out there.”

Solving Sweitzer was not easy, especially with Ashley Humphrey largely unable to facilitate while dealing with a pesky faceguard by Alex Blake. She still broke her own single-season Division I record during a four-assist showing, including a player-up feed to Olivia Vergano that pushed the score to 10-4, capping a 3-0 run in the third quarter that began when Eliza Osburn scored two goals in nine seconds.

On the other end of the field, Madison Taylor was dealing with a pesky defense of her own. Sam Forrest drew the task of going toe-to-toe with Taylor, the single-season goals record holder, and didn’t give an inch. She was aggressive yet disciplined, sturdy yet agile, and held Taylor to her first goalless performance since May 14, 2023 — a span of 45 games.

Taylor was not a non-factor, as she still produced four assists, but the work of Forrest and the rest of the defense kept Northwestern out of sorts, even as it attempted its comeback in the fourth quarter.

Jane Hansen cut into the lead by finishing a Mary Carroll assist to make it 11-6, and Northwestern kept the margin close in the final two minutes with goals from Sam Smith and Aditi Foster, but Sophie Student helped the Tar Heels win the final draw so they could run out the final minute.

“Today, they came out and absolutely terrorized Northwestern,” Nelson said of the defense in front of her. “It made it really easy for me to do my job.”

Nelson joins North Carolina luminaries Megan Ward, Caylee Waters and Taylor Moreno — all national goalies of the year — as netminders to backstop a UNC championship.

Armed with the most impactful group of underclassmen in the country, North Carolina smirked in the face of any challenge that would normally shake a first-year player to their core. The bad news for the rest of lacrosse is that they’re only going to get better — a frightening thought considering the likes of Chloe Humphrey, Addison Pattillo, Kate Levy, Nelson, Osburn and a smattering of others are already game-changing threats.

“They’ve been tough all year,” Jenny Levy said. “There’s not one thing we’ve thrown at them that they’ve shied away from.”

Quite the turnaround from a first-round exit in the NCAA tournament a year ago, a result that has since served as a rallying cry. Forrest said after Friday’s semifinal that the Tar Heels had checks they wanted to cash during their 2025 revenge tour, as they checked off box after box of teams that beat them in 2024 and treated it like their own national championship game.

Consider them cashed. And then some — with the actual national championship.