University of Richmond Athletics
University of Richmond
6-2
#17 North Carolina
5-3
Spiders Fall On The Road To #17 UNC, 15-6
03/20/2016 | Men's Lacrosse
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Facing its second top-20 opponent in front of a national viewing audience in less than two weeks, the University of Richmond men's lacrosse program showed it could play with the nation's best, but this time the Spiders didn't have enough, falling at #17 UNC, 15-6, on Saturday evening.
Boasting the country's ninth-most prolific offense, the Tar Heels jumped out to an early lead and the Spiders were unable to string enough goals together to make a run at UNC.
“UNC is an incredibly athletic team that really makes you work at all positions,” Head Coach Dan Chemotti said. “Their athleticism and length, combined with the phenomenal night their faceoff man had, really put pressure on us both offensively and defensively.”
Junior Mitch Goldberg led the offensive attack for Richmond, scoring two goals for his fifth multi-goal performance of the year. He has now scored a point in 31 of the past 32 games.
Alex Hatem, Eric Haehl, Brendan Hynes and Jean-Luc Chetner all added goals for the Spiders to round out Richmond's scoring.
“They really pressure you in your ride and I thought we did an OK job of handling that, but we never were able to get into a rhythm offensively because they did such a good job limiting our possession for the most of the night,” Chemotti added.
Haehl got the Spiders started early, cutting through the UNC defense and ripping a shot into the back of the net less than 70 seconds into the contest to give Richmond a 1-0 advantage.
After Richmond thwarted several early opportunities for the Tar Heels, UNC got on the board with 10:25 to play in the first to start a string of five straight unanswered goals to claim a 5-1 lead.
Goldberg made a great move to score his first goal of the game halfway through the second. The Spiders continued to pressure the Tar Heel defense, forcing seven saves from UNC's Brian Balkam.
The Tar Heels added two more before the break to give UNC a 7-2 cushion heading into halftime.
The Spiders made an early run in the second half, getting goals from Goldberg and Hatem in the first five minutes of the third to get within 8-4.
However, the Tar Heels continued to put the pressure on the Spiders, scoring five of the game's final six games to secure the 15-6 victory.
“While we've had success early in this season, we've talked a lot about how much lacrosse is still to be played and how we must work to get each time we take the field and that thought process won't change going forward. Our goal is and will continue to be better than the day before,” Chemotti added.
Richmond returns home next Sunday when they host High Point in a critical SoCon matchup. Game time at Robins Stadium is set for 1 p.m. It can be seen live on SpiderTV.
