May 7, 2008
•Navy-North Carolina NCAA Tournament Game Notes
Navy Stats | North Carolina Stats
Game 15: No. 14 Navy at No. 9 North Carolina (4th Seed)
2008 NCAA Tournament
Saturday, May 10 • 7:30 pm • Chapel Hill, N.C.
Media Information
Television: ESPNU
Dave Ryan (play by play), Quint Kessenich (analyst), Melissa Knowles (Sideline)
Radio/Internet:
Listen: 1430 WNAV, 1050 WFED (Pete Medhurst)
Listen: Navy All-Access (free) on www.NavySports.com
Live Stats: Gametracker on www.NavySports.com
Game Preview
• Making its fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance, No. 14 Navy (9-5 overall) will begin its quest to win the program's first NCAA Championship when it travels to Chapel Hill, N.C. on Saturday to battle fourth-seeded and ninth-ranked North Carolina (8-5) ... game time is set for 7:30 pm at UNC's Fetzer Field.
• Saturday's NCAA Tournament contest will be televised live on ESPNU with Dave Ryan (play by play) and Quint Kessenich (analyst) calling the action ... Melissa Knowles will handle sideline duties.
• The Voice of Navy Lacrosse Pete Medhurst will make the call live on 1430 WNAV and 1050 WFED, as well as Navy All-Access (free) located on www.NavySports.com(.)
• Additionally, fans can log onto www.NavySports.com where they can follow the game for free via Gametracker.
• The Mids enter the weekend having endured a three-game skid, including the program's first Patriot League Tournament loss ... due to final exams, Navy's last date of competition was April 25 against Colgate in the league tournament ... two of Navy's losses this spring have been overtime decisions (Cornell and Georgetown).
• Like Navy, Carolina also stepped away from competition following a 17-6 loss against Duke in the ACC Tournament on April 25 ... all five of the Tar Heels' losses have come against NCAA Tournament qualifiers, four against ACC teams and the fifth against 12th-ranked Ohio State.
Taking the Field in ...
10 • The Mids are just one win away from turning in a program-record fifth-straight 10-win campaign.
9 • Nine members of the Navy lacrosse team earned All-Patriot League recognition, including two-time All-American Jordan DiNola who was named the Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year.
8 • The Mids have scored eight or more goals in nine of their 14 games and own a 7-2 record.
7 • Senior Nick Mirabito has been involved in 7 of the Mids' 14 extra-man opportunities, scoring two goals and adding five assists.
6 • Senior Mikelis Visgauss is ranked No. 6 on Navy single-season ground balls list (72), as well as faceoff wins (110).
5 • Navy has held its opponent to 5 or fewer goals in eight games this year.
4 • Navy is one of just four programs nationally who has won 700-plus games (727), joining Johns Hopkins (878), Syracuse (773) and Hobart (713).
3 • Navy has lost three straight first-round NCAA Tournament games.
2 • Sophomore Tim Paul has produced 2 or more goals nine times this season.
1 • Navy's defense has been ranked No. 1 in the country for seven consecutive weeks.
Navy vs. North Carolina - The Series
• The series is deadlocked at 11 wins apiece ... last March, Navy took the series lead after producing the most lop-sided win in series history, a 19-8 victory in Annapolis ... however, Carolina bounced back by taking perhaps an even more important win handing the Mids a 12-8 setback in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in Chapel Hill.
• The UNC win in the NCAA Tournament snapped the Mids' five-game winning streak against the Tar Heels, which was the longest winning streak in the series by Navy.
• Carolina owns a 4-1 advantage over the Midshipmen in NCAA Tournament action ... four of the five matchups took place better than 25 years ago.
• The two teams had met during the regular season every year since 1996, however a scheduling glitch this spring prevented Navy and North Carolina from their annual contest ... the inaugural meeting in the series was in 1975 when the Mids earned an 11-4 win in Annapolis.
• North Carolina owns an 8-3 advantage in games played on its home field ... three of the last five games played in Chapel Hill have not only been decided by one goal, but have gone into overtime, including the 2002 game that was won by North Carolina in the sixth overtime period.
• Five of the last nine games in the series have been decided by one goal.
The Last Time ...
• North Carolina outscored Navy, 5-1, in the fourth quarter en route to a 12-8 victory over the Midshipmen in the first round of the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament at Fetzer Field in Chapel Hill, N.C.
• The Navy offense was sharp early, scoring four goals in the first 10 minutes of the contest ... Basil Daratsos, Ian Dingman, Billy Looney and Tim Paul all scored goals as the Mids took an early 4-3 lead.
• The Mids' offense, however, went stone cold over the final 30 minutes, scoring just four goals ... Navy connected on just eight of 43 shots for the game, including four goals on 31 shots over the final three periods.
• The Navy defense didn't fair much better as North Carolina was able to answer a Navy goal with one of its own in less than a minute on five different occasions ... four times the Mids took a one-goal lead, only to see UNC tie the game in less than 60 seconds ... the fifth time came after Navy had cut the Carolina lead to 9-8 with 11:54 left.
• North Carolina took its first lead of the contest with 4:46 left in the second quarter on an unassisted goal by Sean Delaney.
• The Mids bounced back to take a 6-5 lead at the half on a man-up goal by Dingman off an assist from Looney and then Looney scored his second goal of the half off an assist from Nick Mirabito with 49 seconds left in the half to give the Mids a one goal advantage at the break.
• The score remained 6-5 until 2:19 left in the third period when North Carolina's Gavin Petracca scored an unassisted goal to tie the game at six ... Looney scored his third goal of the game with 37 seconds left in the third to put Navy back up by one, but Carolina's Bart Wagner answered with four seconds left in the quarter to tie the game at 7-7.
• North Carolina took the lead for good with 13 minutes left in the contest on an unassisted goal by Michael Burns and went up 9-7 just 58 seconds later on an unassisted goal by Wagner.
• Navy's Terence Higgins closed the deficit to one at 9-8 off an assist from Dingman with 11:54 left in the contest ... Navy won the ensuing face-off, but never took a shot as Carolina defenseman Brian Burke poked the ball away from a Navy midfielder and raced the length of the field untouched to score his second goal of the year.
• The play by Burke seemed to deflate the Mids as they didn't put up much of a fight over the final 10 minutes.
• Delaney scored his second goal of the game with 5:10 left in the contest to make it 11-8 and Nick Tintle scored an unassisted goal with 2:15 left in the contest to provide the final margin.
Carolina Ties
• Navy head coach Richie Meade is a 1976 graduate of North Carolina where he played lacrosse for current UNC associate athletic director Willie Scroggs ... Scroggs hired Meade as an assistant in 1979 and again in 1989-90.
• Navy junior middie/attack Matt Bitter and Carolina freshman attack Billy Bitter are brothers.
Tourney Time
• Navy is making its fifth-straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament and its 25th overall ... Navy has played in the fifth-most NCAA Tournaments behind Johns Hopkins (37), Maryland (31), Virginia (31) and Syracuse (27) ... UNC is making its 23rd appearance.
• The last time Navy qualified for five-consecutive NCAA Tournaments was a quarter of a century ago ... the Mids earned a berth in the NCAA's first tournament in 1971 and earned 11 subsequent bids (1971-82).
• Navy is 4-5 in tournament action under head coach Richie Meade.
• Navy owns a 5-6 record in first-round contests ... Navy has lost three in a row.
• Facing the Tar Heels in the opening round for the second year in a row, it's the first time since the tournament was expanded to at least 10 teams (1986) that the Mids have faced first round opponents in back-to-back years (8-team tournament from 1971-82 with quarters, semis, championship).
• Navy has been unseeded in each of the last three years and is 1-5 as an unseeded team.
• The Mids are 1-3 against teams seeded fourth - lost to Washington & Lee (13-12, 3OT) in the quarterfinals in 1973; def. Penn (14-12) in the quarterfinals in 1977; lost to Syracuse (13-14) in the 2004 National Championship; lost to Virginia (8-10) in the quarterfinals in 2005.
• Carolina owns a 4-1 advantage over the Midshipmen in NCAA Tournament action ... four of the five matchups took place better than 25 years ago.
• Senior Nick Mirabito is the only player on the roster to play in each of the four NCAA Tournament games since 2005.
• Just four players on the current Navy roster have scored goals in NCAA Tournament play.
• Senior Nick Mirabito has scored five goals and added four assists in the four NCAA Tournament games in which he has played, including his hat trick against Delaware in the first round of the 2005 tournament ... it was his first-collegiate NCAA Tournament contest.
• Senior Terence Higgins and sophomores Basil Daratsos and Tim Paul each scored their first collegiate goal in NCAA Tournament play last year against the Tar Heels.
• Neither Navy keeper, Matt Coughlin nor Tommy Phelan, has played in an NCAA Tournament game.
• Over the course of its five-year NCAA Tournament streak, Navy has averaged 8.75 goals per game ... the Mids have been held to seven or fever goals twice in the eight-game stretch (6-5 win over Cornell in 2004 and 7-9 loss at Georgetown in 2006).
• Navy opponents have averaged 8.63 goals per game during that stretch, reaching double digits in three of the last five matchups.
