Last season, an undefeated North Carolina women’s lacrosse team rolled into the Final Four hoping to achieve perfection, only to be thwarted by Boston College in the semifinal game. That loss drove the Tar Heels right back to this year, once again with a perfect season, once again the overall one seed, and this time facing Northwestern. Surely they could get over the hump this time.
Except Northwestern had other ideas. Still raw after losing 20-9 in Chapel Hill a couple months ago, the Wildcats seemed to have studied the game film from Stony Brook’s close loss to the Tar Heels last week and quickly punched Carolina in the mouth from the outset.