BC Upsets No. 1 Maryland, 15-13
Courtesy of BCEagles.com
STONY BROOK, N.Y. - Fourth-seeded Boston College advanced to its second consecutive National Championship game as the Eagles defeated top-ranked Maryland 15-13 Friday evening in the national semifinals at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium on the campus of Stony Brook University.
It was BC's first win over Maryland in 14 games and snapped the defending national champions 18-game winning streak.
Junior Sam Apuzzo scored three of her four goals in the second half to propel the Eagles to the victory. BC moved to 22-1 on the year and added to its single-season record for wins in the process. BC will look to win its first National Championship in program history Sunday.
After starting last weekend's NCAA quarterfinal win over Stony Brook by scoring the first three goals of the game, BC had to fight from behind versus the top-ranked and defending National Champion Terrapins.
Maryland scored the game's first three goals just two minutes into the contest.
BC's Dempsey Arsenault scored her 60th goal of the year to break the ice for the Eagles at the 26:56 mark.
Maryland continued its early momentum by scoring five of the first six goals to take a 5-1 lead just eight minutes in.
Later in the half, Sam Apuzzo's 82nd goal of the season started a furious BC rally as the Eagles ripped off five straight goals.
Taylor Walker converted a free position goal to cut the deficit to two at the 11:51 mark. The scoring run continued as Kaileen Hart scored her 56th goal of the year with 11:28 left in the half to close the gap to one at 6-5.
Cara Urbank scored BC's next two goals as she juked out a Maryland defender to tie the game at six and then scored on a free position goal for her 25th tally of the year to give BC its first lead of the game at 7-6 with 8:20 left in the half.
Jen Giles and Megan Whittle scored back-to-back goals for Maryland while BC's Tess Chandler second goal of the first half with 1:37 remaining knotted the score at eight.
The back-and-forth contest continued after halftime as the team's traded goals to keep the contest tied at 13 until Apuzzo's final two tallies of the night iced the win.
Apuzzo gave BC the lead for good at 14-13 with 8:14 remaining as she faked out the Maryland defender for the hat trick. Just under a minute late, Apuzzo's fourth of the night with 7:26 left closed out the scoring at 15-13.
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James Madison Downs Tar Heels, 15-12, In NCAA Semifinal
Courtesy of GoHeels.com
STONY BROOK, NY — Third-seeded James Madison (21-1) jumped out to an early, 3-0 lead it would never relinquish, beating No. 2 North Carolina (17-4) by a score of 15-12 in the NCAA Tournament semifinals at LaValle Stadium on Friday evening. The loss snapped Carolina's 11-game winning streak.
Haley Warden scored five goals for the Dukes, who also got three goals and an assist from both Hanna Haven and Kristen Gaudian.
Marie McCool had two goals and four assists in her final college game to lead the Tar Heels, who also got four goals and an assist from Jamie Ortega and three goals from Kara Klages. Olivia Ferrucci scored twice, Katie Hoeg had two assists and Ela Hazar had a goal and an assist for UNC.
"First and foremost, I just want to congratulate James Madison," UNC head coach Jenny Levy said afterward. "They've had a tremendous season and we saw them at the beginning of the year and now at the last game of the season for us. We came across a really tough JMU team and we just didn't get into much rhythm offensively in the first half, We needed to shift our defense around in the second half, which obviously was somewhat effective. But they're just a tremendous team that's really well balanced and we just we struggled with that today."
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