After benchmark victories against the 18th and 11th ranked teams in the country, Oregon's lacrosse team was no match for traditional powerhouse North Carolina Tuesday night at Pape` Field. The seventh ranked Tar Heels erased a one goal deficit 0:41 seconds into the second half then scored five goals in just under seven minutes to pull away from the Ducks 14-9.
"At the end, possession was key, and we couldn't get that back," Oregon head coach Jen Larsen said.
A 6-3 advantage in second half draw controls helped North Carolina maintain possessions, as did a 13-5 advantage in fouls called.
"North Carolina went into stall," Oregon senior Jana Bradley said. "We had to push out and not play our normal defense, so we were exhausted. That was kind of the breaking point for us."
Alex Breiner, Ilsa van den Berg and Jana Bradley each scored a pair of goals for the Ducks, who saw a six-game winning streak snapped as their season record fall to 6-2.
Goalkeeper Anna Poponyak faced 27 shots and was credited with six saves.
"We need to rest our legs," said Larsen when asked to look ahead to Sunday's 3:00 pm match with Columbia. "We've had a long couple days with two games in Southern California... they (players) are in the middle of dead week going into finals so they need to be studying... we'll give them a rest and then regroup from there."
