The DU women’s lacrosse team is just two wins from perfection.
The undefeated Pioneers rode their trademark defense, and clutch fourth-period goals from senior Julia Gilbert and graduate student Kayla DeRose to a stunning come-from-behind 5-4 Elite Eight victory over fourth-seeded North Carolina Thursday afternoon at Dorrance Field in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Head coach Liza Kelly’s fifth-seeded Pios rallied from a 4-1 second-period deficit, holding the high-powered Tar Heels attack scoreless over the final 35 minutes, 22 seconds, to advance to the NCAA Tournament Final Four for the first time.
DU, 22-0, will face No. 1 Northwestern on Friday, May 26, at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C. The game will be broadcast on ESPNU.
“We talked about in pregame, ‘act as if,’ and I kind of said, ‘Act as if you’ve never been here before, act as if you you’ve never been to a Final Four and it’s everything you ever wanted,’ because that’s kind of been our goal,” Kelly said.
The win was No. 300 of Kelly’s career, and it couldn’t have been much sweeter.
“I don’t know that it’s completely hit me yet,” Kelly said. “… I knew we could do this, and I honestly knew it was going to look like this. We kind of talked as a staff after this weekend kind of being held pretty low scoring in the first two games (of the tournament), and we just said we have to be comfortable with it. We have to be comfortable with a one-goal game.
“It’s just knowing who we are and being true to that.”
The Tar Heels (16-5) came into Thursday’s Elite Eight matchup averaging 14.6 goals per game. But against a DU defense that’s the stingiest in the nation, they struggled to maintain possession or score on DU sophomore goaltender Emelia Bohi, who stopped 5 of 9 shots on goal.
North Carolina had 15 turnovers and had just 15 total shots, less than half its season overage (31). DU senior Sam Thacker and graduate student Gracie DeRose had three caused turnovers apiece, and DU came away with 15 of 20 ground balls.
Kayla DeRose and Gilbert scored two goals apiece, all coming during a run of four unanswered scores to close out the game. Ryan Dineen scored the other goal for the Pios to start things off in the first period. DeRose began the rally with an unassisted goal with 2:03 left in the first half. Gilbert scored off a Dineen assist for the lone goal of the third period, then added another tally off a free position shot to tie things up at 4-all with 8:12 to go.
Less than two minutes later, DeRose netted the game-winner, as the Pios beat North Carolina for the first time in five tries.
“It was really fun to see our senior captain in Julia and Kayla, as a fifth-year (player), kind of step up and lead us today,” Kelly said.
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