The top-ranked Orange look primed to make a national championship run in May. The Tar Heels, on the other hand, aren’t thinking about defending their title at the moment.
While loaded with talent, the Tar Heels are still young. Prior to Saturday’s bout, 38.5 percent of their goals this season had been from true first-year players.
“I don’t ever see that we’re ‘defending’ anything,” UNC head coach Jenny Levy said. “I think it’s a new year, and we’re seeking another opportunity to compete for a national title. That’s how we look at it; there’s new players out there. We wanna position ourselves to be as good as we can be against any opponent.”
With 4:10 remaining, Casey tied the score at 12. But 19 seconds later, a UNC defensive collapse led to Emma Tyrrell finding a wide-open Megan Carney next to the cage, and Carney buried the shot. Then, with 1:12 left to play, Emma Tyrrell nailed the dagger on a high feed from Emma Ward, and the Orange never looked back.
Although UNC outshot Syracuse 35-25, its offensive struggles were evident down the stretch, as the Tar Heels were held scoreless in the final four minutes.
“As we’re continuing to grow and get better, the number one thing that I take away from this is that we can’t have lapses,” Levy said. “We gotta finish the moments that we have. You can’t be a shooter; you’ve gotta be a finisher. Our program prides itself on being finishers, and we obviously have some work to do on it.”
While North Carolina will wrap its regular season at Duke on Thursday, Syracuse will play Boston College looking to make program history. Saturday’s victory tied a program record of 15 consecutive wins, and beating the Eagles would cap a perfect regular season.
Sweitzer, in particular, is looking to build off her career game and is confident that the Orange can get it done.
“We can play anywhere, no matter what,” Sweitzer said. “This whole season we’ve been prepared for every game that we’ve played.”