The Sunday Slide: North Carolina's Army of Freshmen

What a game.

Expectations were through the roof for the first of hopefully several clashes between Boston College and North Carolina in Chapel Hill on Saturday. The Tar Heels never seemed rattled against the defending national champion and showed significant fortitude in matching the Eagles goal for goal.

Eventually, the young Heels did enough to win. They are in line to be ranked first in the country for the first time since week five of the 2023 season.

The win might not have happened without Jenny Levy’s outstanding crop of freshmen. The Heels got four goals combined from Eliza Osburn (two), Kate Levy and Addison Pattillo. If you count Chloe Humphrey, a redshirt freshman playing in her first season, there are another two goals and one assist to be attributed to first-year players.

At this point in the spring, a freshman is hardly a freshman. While there are new on-field experiences every day, these players have almost completed a full academic year. They’ve been teammates since the fall with the upperclassmen. No longer are the wide-eyed youth.

Still, Saturday’s game required veteran moxie. UNC trailed 5-2 after the first quarter before coming back and tying it at 5. Then after a long back and forth, BC took a 10-9 lead with 9:54 remaining.

Caroline Godine sandwiched one of Osburn’s goals for a three-goal UNC run that put the game away, especially with how effective Lexi Zenk was between the pipes. Another freshman, Zenk split time with Betty Nelson and made four second-half saves.

The 12-0 Tar Heels now have an excellent chance to finish the 2025 regular season undefeated. Three more games remain against East Carolina, Cal and Duke. Quite the turnaround after a rocky, by UNC standards, past two seasons.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

Penn State was just 2-7. Cue the popular Undertaker meme. The Nittany Lions have won four straight, and they weren’t gimmes. Michigan, Rutgers and now Ohio State have all fallen victim to the resurgent Nittany Lions, who are finally putting things together after an incredible amount of roster turnover after 2024.

It was a common theme in the preseason. Many teams were losing more than they were bringing back. That meant it would take time, and for some more time than others, to put the pieces together. Missy Doherty’s team seems to be doing that. They close the regular season with USC and Johns Hopkins.

Given the state of the Ivy League, resume-boosters are welcomed. Princeton appears to be the clear favorite at this moment in time (subject to change), so the rest of the super-competitive league need to build up quality wins. Yale has a few (and another after ending a three-game skid by beating Syracuse earlier this week), and now Penn has added a second. After beating Loyola on March 12, the Quakers topped Maryland on Monday.

Penn then fell to Harvard on Saturday — pretty much emphasizing my point about the Ivy League craziness. Come May, quality wins matter.

Johns Hopkins has been one of the more exciting teams to watch this spring. Northwestern’s 18-5 beatdown of the Blue Jays shows just how large the gap is between the No. 3 team in the country (Northwestern) and the No. 5 team (Johns Hopkins). Anything can change in May, but the top tier of North Carolina, Boston College and Northwestern appears to be untouchable – except against each other.

Shoutout to Charlotte. The 49ers overcame the unanimous-staff-picks jinx and beat South Florida 17-16 in a battle of first-year varsity programs. Our entire staff, including guest picker Dempsey Arsenault, picked USF to win. We apparently didn’t account for Kylie Gioia and her six-goal, one-assist performance or Katie Ling’s 15-save outing.

Some players aren’t in it for the goals. Caroline Mullahy is one of them. The Harvard senior is set to post her third straight season with more assists than goals. The only reason it won’t be four straight seasons is because she went for 15 and 15 as a freshman. Harvard attackers owe her lunch on the next road trip.

MY PICKS

I had a 2-3 week but only lost one game on clubhouse leader Beth Ann Mayer. All four pickers incorrectly chose South Florida to beat Charlotte, and all four correctly picked Maryland over USC.

That left some back-and-forth in the BC-UNC, Penn-Harvard and Stanford-Notre Dame contests.

It’s on to Week 10, and time is running out to make a comeback.

BY THE NUMBERS

1 • Undefeated team left in the countr— the Tar Heels.

5 of 6 • Goals by Stanford to close the game and erase a 6-3 deficit against Notre Dame, leading to an 8-7 win over the Irish. Rylee Bouvier left her feet to score the winner.

6 • Goals for Bella Goodwin in Duke’s 14-13 win over Brown. Goodwin is quietly putting together a stellar season with 42 goals and 12 assists.

7 of 8 • Goals scored by UConn to close Sunday’s game against Denver, resulting in a 14-13 overtime win. What a show of resolve by the Huskies, who trailed 12-7 at the time their first goal in the comeback.

9 • Straight wins for Princeton after its 12-11 win over Cornell. A 13-11 slip up against Virginia on opening day is the lone blemish on the Tigers’ resume.

30 • Career games for Hofstra’s Nikki Mennella, who is on pace to pass Alyssa Parrella for the most points in program history. Through 30 games, Parrella produced 141 points. Mennella is at 146.

200 • Career goals for Madison Taylor, and we’re not even at the end of her junior season yet.

250 • Career wins for USF head coach Mindy McCord after the Bulls dispatched Liberty on Sunday.