On a sunny, windy Saturday afternoon at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium, the Denver Pioneers ran into a hot goaltender — and a hot attackman.
And when the new polls come out, the Pioneers’ latest stint as the nation’s top-ranked team will be history. So will DU’s distinction of having the No. 1 teams in both lacrosse and hockey.
North Carolina got 17 saves from junior goalie Brian Balkam and four goals from senior attack Luke Goldstock in the Tar Heels’ 13-9 win over the Pioneers.
The sixth-ranked Tar Heels were coming off a 13-5 loss to Johns Hopkins, but dominated the Pioneers, getting the first two goals — from Michael Tagliaferri and Goldstock — and never trailing. UNC led 4-2 after one quarter, 7-3 at halftime and 10-5 after three quarters.
Ethan Walker had three goals and Connor Cannizzaro two for the Pioneers, who fell to 4-1.
After the game, DU coach Bill Tierney pored over the stats sheets before commenting, as if he was searching for answers. This was glaring: The Pioneers outshot the Tar Heels 43-34, and DU goalie Alex Ready had only six saves.
“This was one of those games where you’re not sure what happened,” Tierney said. “It’s not like we can yell and scream at the kids about making bad plays and all that stuff. First of all, give credit to Brian Balkom there … He was fabulous today. Look at the stats, you have 17 saves on one end and six on another, it’s hard to say we didn’t play well.”
Also, the Tar Heels’ Stephen Kelly avoided being dominated in the faceoff circle, winning 10 of 24 against the Pioneers’ peerless faceoff specialist, Trevor Baptiste.
“It’s a setback,” Tierney said. “I’ll tell you why it is. This year is going to be crazy. I’m not a big compare-scores guy, but you can’t help but look was what’s happened, just in two weeks. These guys get beat up by Hopkins, Hopkins gets beat up by Princeton, and we get beat up by these guys. Where does that put us?
“This isn’t hockey. This isn’t baseball. This is not basketball. You only have 13 games. You’ve got to quickly figure out what you did right, what you did wrong. I told the team, ‘There’s nothing you can do about the result of today, it’s over, but there’s a lot we can do about getting better from it.”
The bright spot for the Pioneers was the return of senior midfielder Tyler Pace, who hadn’t played in the first four games because of a combination of injuries. Pace had a goal and an assist.
“Tyler was moving well,” said Tierney. “He’s very smart out there. He brings a level of game IQ to us and they were ready for it, which is fine. They put the (long) pole on him, which is fine, and he did a good job moving the ball, He had some shots that normally he would can, but it’s his first game back since last May. Tyler’s only going to get better and so will we as he does.”
After a home game next Sunday against Notre Dame, the Pioneers finish out their non-league schedule at Ohio State and Towson before opening the five-game Big East Conference regular season against Georgetown at DU on April 1.
