Syracuse women's lacrosse jumped out to a 5-0 lead on North Carolina in the first few minutes of the game and never looked back on its way to a 20-5 victory over the ninth ranked Tar Heels. With the win, the Orange improved to 5-3 (4-0) on the season to remain in first place in the ACC. Next up for SU is a matchup with Albany in the JMA Wireless Dome on Tuesday, March 19th. That game starts at 3:00 p.m. Eastern and will be broadcast on the ACC Network Xtra. It was the largest margin of defeat for North Carolina in program history.
Emma Tyrrell, Olivia Adamson and Natalie Smith all had hat tricks for Syracuse. Tyrrell added three assists to her five goals for eight total points to lead Syracuse. Emma Ward added two goals and three assists. Those four led an attack that helped SU jump out to a 5-0 lead in the first four minutes of the first quarter. While the offense did not score the rest of the quarter, the defense remained stingy allowing only one goal in the quarter, three in the first half, and six overall. The defense allowed only eight shots on goal all afternoon.
On the other hand, the Syracuse offense had 26 shots on goal. That was in part do to dominating the draw control 18-9. It was a complete performance all the way around as the 20 goals scored set a Syracuse record for most goals against the Tar Heels. UNC boasted one of the best defenses in the country coming in.
The only real momentum North Carolina had was scoring back to back goals in the second quarter to trim the lead to 7-3. However, the Orange would respond with seven straight scores between the second and third quarters to put the game out of reach.
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