From the looks of the first half, it appeared the women's lacrosse team was going to upset No. 6 North Carolina on the Tar Heels' home turf. Instead, a second-half rally by UNC handed the Bears their first loss of the season. Brown was defeated, 12-8, on Thursday at Chapel Hill, followed by a close 6-5 loss to Davidson on Sunday. The Bears' record is now 1-2, while UNC improved to 4-0 and Davidson climbed to 2-2.
The Tar Heels started the scoring in the Thursday game, gaining an early 2-0 lead. But the Bears weren't fazed by the early advantage and quickly responded with a few goals of their own. In a span of just 2:17 Brown moved ahead with three consecutive goals, one from Jadie DeTolla '08 and two back-to-back goals from Jesse Nunn '09.
The rest of the first period was characterized by back-and-forth scoring. North Carolina began the seesaw by regaining a 4-3 lead with goals from Kristen Taylor and leading scorer Megan Bosica, who scored about halfway through the period. The Bears answered with a goal from Kelly Robinson '09 at 16:55, followed by one from Lauren Vitkus '09 at 20:16 to put Brown ahead 5-4. The Bears went into the break with a 6-4 lead after Nunn's third goal of the half.
Despite starting the second half in the same way they finished the first, the Bears were unable to hold their intensity for the entire 30 minutes. Less than three minutes after halftime, Vitkus scored her second goal of the game. But North Carolina turned on the play that made it No. 6 in the country and stole the remainder of the game as the Bears struggled to hold on.
"We came out really hard because we went in with an underdog mentality; that's how we really played in the first half," Justine Lupo '08 said. "They were shocked that we came out that hard, so they definitely came out that much harder in the second half."
Bosica, who started the game slowly with only one goal in the opening period, exploded for four goals in the second half. After UNC's first goal of the half by Julia Ryan, Bosica began her rally and went on to score two unassisted goals. DeTolla responded for Bruno with an unassisted goal of her own, but it wasn't enough. Bosica countered with two more to put the Tar Heels up, 9-8, with 13:33 remaining in play, and from there they never looked back.
"I think we just started to run out of steam and let the little things get away from us," DeTolla wrote in an e-mail to the Herald.
North Carolina finished the game by scoring three more times to put the final at 12-8. Nunn said that the score didn't reflect the Bears' play.
"Although we lost by four the game was much closer," she wrote in an e-mail. "We kept it competitive until the very end."
Although the Bears lost, many players noted that the team was content with its play and that it took that high morale into the next game. Although Davidson is not as highly ranked as their previous opponent, the Bears said they try to be equally prepared for every team.
"We prepare the same way for any team and disregard rankings because we believe on any given day, any team can win," wrote Meghan Markowski '10 in an e-mail.
However, a decrease in the speed of play definitely made a difference, and Brown found it difficult to adjust. The game was mostly back and forth, but the Bears, unable to modify their play to a slower pace, ultimately fell to Davidson at the end of the second half.
Brown started the scoring just 1:36 into the game with a goal from Molly McCarthy '10. The teams traded goals throughout the game, starting with an answer from Davidson's Becky Horton, who would score two more times.
Nunn answered with her first of two goals on the day to put Bruno ahead, 2-1. Davidson scored twice more but Brown had the final say in the first half when Nunn scored again to tie the contest at three with 11:45 remaining.
Brown started the second half with intensity, breaking the horse-trading by scoring two unanswered goals in the first five minutes. The first came from Kara Kelly '10 who was quickly followed by DeTolla. But the Wildcats, down 5-3, started to counter and, about a minute after DeTolla's goal, Horton brought Davidson within one. The last 10 minutes of the game saw two more Wildcat goals, unanswered by Brown, to give Davidson a 6-5 lead at the final whistle.
The Bears are back on the turf today at 5 p.m. when they host BU.
