(Photo Courtesy North Carolina Athletics)
Key momentum swings and another goal mouth incident headlined No. 8 North Carolina’s 14-12 victory against Syracuse inside the JMA Wireless Dome on Saturday.
After falling just short of making the ACC Tournament in their second-straight .500 season in 2024, UNC clinched a share of the regular season ACC title along with Notre Dame.
However, they didn't do so without a stressful ending.
Dominic Pietramala scored six goals on 20 shots to lead a Tar Heel offense that extended their lead to as much as six goals with three minutes left.
Before that, though, Pietramala’s fifth goal capped a 3-0 third-quarter run to go up 9-5 as UNC began to pull away, constantly bombarding Jimmy McCool’s net seemingly without reply.
The drama really started when a huge hit from Billy Dwan III followed a loose ball foul on the Orange to end the third quarter. The ‘Cuse coaching staff was incensed as they had thought North Carolina got away with a loose ball push before Owen Duffy tossed his third of four assists to freshman middie Caden Harshbarger for a finish in front. Harshbarger paid the price, though, as Dwan came across the crease and delivered a crunching blow to the diving Tar Heel midfielder. Dawn was called for a 2-minute nonreleasable penalty.
Ryan Levy’s score 18 seconds into the fourth quarter to make it 11-7 was the only extra-man goal UNC managed to get during those two minutes, but a push from behind on middie Wyatt Hottle before another 1-minute releasable flag against Joey Spallina on goalie Mike Gianforcaro showed the Orange appeared to have lost some composure.
Not so fast.
Finn Thomson, back for the second straight game after missing the previous six due to injury, flung home a ridiculous backhander with his back to the net at 11-8.
But 54 seconds later and Syracuse was on the back foot again, conceding transition to senior LSM Paul Barton, who moved it over to Duffy, whose one-more to James Matan upstarted another 3-0 run.
Pietramala, who undertook more of the dodging efforts as Duffy continues to play through a nagging lower body injury, managed his sixth score on a nice hitch and rip at 13-8. Pietramala has scored six goals against both programs in which his father most recently coached at, also producing a sock trick in UNC's 13-12 win at Homewood in February.
Freshman Brevin Wilson followed up his highlight-reel toe drag and riser from the second quarter with his second goal to extend the lead to 14-8 with just 3:01 on the clock.
Somehow, Syracuse got remarkably close to completing what would have been the comeback of the year.
Instead, after entering the day fighting for a potential home game in the NCAA First Round and as the top seed of the ACC Tournament, the Orange now find themselves firmly on the bubble and needing wins in Charlotte, N.C., next week as the fourth seed in the conference tournament.
Sam English put in a herculean effort down the stretch to try and avoid such a result. He executed on mandown defensive kills, cleared past everyone himself, got downhill after face-off wings. He was doing it all. His one-timer on a Spallina assist made it 14-9 with 2:24 left.
Even when senior Greg Elijah-Brown’s dunk on the EMO made it a three-goal game with 1:18 left, the Orange bench was probably cheering more for the Senior Day contribution than having any real hopes at erasing the three-goal deficit with so little time on the clock.
English caused a turnover, faked a pass to his left, swam right and sent a high bouncer to make it 14-11 with :49 left. Only 12 seconds passed before he emerged from the defensive zone after John Mullen’s clutch face-off win and assisted Owen Hiltz at 14-12.
Five seconds later and the goal mouth rule reared its ugly head.
After North Carolina coach Joe Breschi called timeout to settle his group down, Mullen popped it forward quick and whizzed a pass in front for a Thomson twister while tip-toe-ing the crease. While the twister evaded Gianforcaro, Thomson’s right glove did not avoid the crease’s inner circle.
With the jam-packed crowd that stayed erupted having thought their Orange appeared to have scored their third in a 15-second span to make it a one-goal game, an official review reversed the call due to Thomson’s right hand landing on the line of the goal mouth, and without being pushed into the crease by a defender, the goal was waved off.
Freshman defenseman Chase Cellucci turned it over on the far sideline on the ensuing clear, but Syracuse didn’t have enough time for Hottle to use his blazing speed and the game was over.
Brady Wambach won 16-of-27 face-offs (59%), Gianforcaro made 10 stops, Pietramala had seven points (6G, 1A), Duffy matched his season-high of four helpers, and Wilson, Spencer Wirtheim and Matan all scored twice.
With the win, North Carolina secured the 2-seed and will face 3-seeded archrival Duke on Friday at American Legion Memorial Stadium.
The Orange, meanwhile, will take on the back-to-back champs and top-seeded Notre Dame with their backs to the wall a month after beating them 14-9.
