Holman & Wood Lead UNC Lacrosse Past Dartmouth

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Marcus Holman and Thomas Wood combined for 11 points Wednesday afternoon tolead the 15th-ranked North Carolina men’s lacrosse team to a 13-10 victory over Dartmouth before 1,116 fans at Fetzer Field. Holman had a career-high five assists and matched his career high with six points while Wood scored four goals, the most he has scored in a game in almost two years.

Carolina earned the much-needed win to improve to 6-3 on the season heading into Saturday’s nationally-televised match against Maryland on Saturday at 12 noon. The Fetzer Field matchup with the Terps will be televised on ESPNU. The Big Green has dropped three matches in a row and is now 2-3 on the campaign.

Three Tar Heels had multiple goals in the game as Woodscored four times, to go along with an assist, and Joey Sankey and Davey Emala had two tallies each. Sankey also added an assist. Holman had a goal and five assists for UNC while Jimmy Bitter had a goal and two helpers. Chad Tutton had a goal and an assist as well.

Dartmouth was led by Drew Tunney who had two goals and four assists. Kip Dooley added a pair of goals and Chris Costabile had a goal and an assist.

UNC outshot the Big Green 58-32 overall, including a 22-8 edge in the second quarter when the Tar Heels outscored Dartmouth 8-4. Steven Rastivo made 15 saves and allowed 10 goals for UNC while Fergus Campbell had 15 saves and allowed 13 goals for Dartmouth. The 15 saves were the third highest total in a game during Rastivo’s career.

UNC had a slight edge in ground balls at 37-34 while Dartmouth led at the face-off X 15-12. One of the keys to the victory for Carolina was the fact it committed a season-low seven turnovers and had more shots on goal than turnovers for the first time since the win over Navy on February 25.

Alex Del Balso won 15 of 27 faceoffs for Dartmouth and led the Big Green with nine ground balls. He also scored a goal. Sophomore Frankie Kelly did most of the work at the X for UNC, winning 12 of 21 faceoffs and leading the Tar Heels with seven ground balls. Kelly’s previous high for ground balls was four against Presbyterian on April 14, 2011.

The four goals by Wood were the most he has scored in a game since he had five against Ohio State on May 8, 2010. Wood had five ground balls in the game, matching his career initially set against Lehigh on February 20, 2010.

Holman’s five assists were a career high, exceeding by one the total of four he had against Navy on February 25 of this season. Holman also had six points in that game against the Midshipmen and he matched that total against the Big Green Wednesday.

After a low scoring first quarter which ended at 1-1, Wood put the Tar Heels up for good just 24 seconds into the second quarter as hescored off an assist by Jimmy Bitter. That jump started an 8-4 second quarter run by UNC. The margin was still a single goal until Bitter, Holman and Wood scored three successive goals in a span of less than three minutes to put the Heels up 8-4 with 2:30 left in the first half.

Jake Weil scored an unassisted goal 55 seconds before halftime but that was matched by Jack McBride’s goal with six seconds left, giving the Tar Heels a four-goal cushion at the intermission.

A pair of Dartmouth goals got the Big Green within two goals less than five minutes into the third quarter. Holman then took over as he assisted on back-to-back goals by Joey Sankey and Chad Tutton to put UNC up 11-7 with 3:55 left in the quarter. In fact, Holman would go on to assist on all four UNC goals in the second half.

The Big Green rallied again and a goal by Kop Dooley made it 11-9 with 8:42 to play. Davey Emala answered for UNC at 5:59 but Costabile scored for Dartmouth 58 seconds later, again cutting Carolina’s lead to two goals.

The Tar Heels then finished off the scoring at 3:19 with Sankey getting his second tally of the game, again with an assist by Holman.

It was a tough day for both teams’ extra-man offenses as Dartmouth went 0-for-3 while Carolina was 1-for-5.

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2 Comments

  1. rob on May 1, 2013 at 5:32 pm

    what is the symbol on his helmet?

  2. rob on May 1, 2013 at 5:32 pm

    what is the symbol on his helmet?

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