Christina Gibbons scored a pair of goals to lead Cardinal Gibbons to a 3-0 victory over Hickory St. Stephens on Saturday afternoon for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association state 3-A girl’s soccer championship at Dail Soccer Field at N.C. State University.
Gibbons, a Duke signee who scored five goals in a playoff game against Burlington Williams earlier in the playoffs, was named Most Valuable Player of the championship match.
The Crusaders exerted heavy pressure in the first 20 minutes and tallied just 2:08 into the contest when all-American Morgan Reid found the back of the net. Then Cardinal Gibbons made it 2-0 in the 11th minute with a two on one that resulted in a goal by Gibbons.
In the 60th minute, Gibbons dribbled down the right side and then tucked it into the left corner of the net for a 3-0 advantage.
The Crusader defense, with senior Kristen Twomey in goal, recorded its 18th shutout in 25 games. Twomey had five saves as Gibbons outshot St. Stephens 20-9.
Cardinal Gibbons finished the season 22-2-1 and played for the NCHSAA women’s soccer championship for the fourth time, winning its second state crown. The Crusaders won the 2-A title in 2007 and now have an amazing 38-6 record in state playoff competition in the last eight seasons. St. Stephens made its first appearance in the championship and the Indians ended the campaign 21-4-2.
The Raleigh Sports Consortium serves as the primary host city partner for the women’s soccer championship, along with the Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Duke University junior faceoff specialist Brendan Fowler won 20-of-28 faceoffs and junior Jordan Wolf scored four goals to lead the Blue Devils to the 2013 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse National Championship with a 16-10 victory over top-seeded Syracuse. The national championship is the second for the Blue Devils and the second for head coach John Danowski.
Fowler garnered the Most Outstanding Player award, while David Lawson, Jake Tripucka and Wolf joined the Wantagh, N.Y., native on the all-tournament team. The national championship is the 13th for Duke University and the second lacrosse title in four seasons. Wolf led all scorers in the game with four goals and two assists, while Josh Offit and Josh Dionne had three apiece. Offit posted five points overall and Tripucka had four (2g, 2a).
“Well, first we want to congratulate Syracuse University,” said Danowski. “Such a rich tradition and a classy coaching staff and great young men who played really hard. Nobody scripts being down 4‑0 or 5‑0, and inside I think we were all freaking out. But Jake Tripucka’s first goal I think allowed everybody to relax a little bit. Having Brendan Fowler at the faceoff X certainly doesn’t hurt anybody’s confidence when he trots out there. And at halftime, we basically said that we need to play Duke lacrosse over the next 30 minutes. But I think at halftime, I think getting back to 6‑5 helped everybody. I think we were settled down at halftime, and then just continued to play the game.”
Duke fell behind 5-0 to start the game, but outscored the Orange 12-1 to grab a 13-7 lead with 10:47 left in the fourth quarter en route to the six-goal victory.
Syracuse raced out to a 5-0 lead in the opening 15:42 before Jordan Wolf put the Blue Devils on the scoreboard for the first time at the 12:54 mark of the second quarter.
After the Orange responded to make it 6-1, senior Jake Tripucka got to the crease for his 22nd goal of the season and the first of his two of the afternoon to spark a 4-0 run that sent the Blue Devils into the locker room trailing by one, 6-5.
Four different Blue Devils netted goals in the run, including freshman Myles Jones. Duke’s defense was buckled down in the second quarter, allowing just two goals and held the Orange scoreless in the final 11:47. Led by Fowler, the Blue Devils dominated faceoffs in the second quarter, winning 7-of-8 and picking up 13 ground balls to Syracuse’s six. Duke also outshot the Orange 13-6 in the second session after allowing 15 in the opening frame.
“Well, obviously with such a big stage I think people just want to make plays,” said Dionne. It’s a natural occurrence. But I think our coaching staff did a great job at settling us down. To reiterate what Coach said, we wanted to play Duke lacrosse, and I think everyone saw that and it was evident when we started doing that and when our seniors got patient, we got patient.”
Fowler continued his dominance at the X in the third quarter, winning all seven restarts and ultimately 13 straight as the Blue Devils completed the comeback with a Lawson score 2:02 into the third period. The scoring pace slowed as neither team scored over the next seven-plus minutes.
“Obviously winning face‑offs and getting the ball back makes it a lot easier to score goals,” said Fowler. “But early I violated a few times, kind of let it get to my head a little bit. Once I cooled down a little and stuck to what I do every day, got into a groove there and just felt pretty good going out there every time.”
The Orange ended its 22:19 scoreless drought ended at the 4:28 mark of the third to go back up 7-6, but Duke responded with seven unanswered for the 13-7 lead with 10:47 to play in the game. The first six of those goals came in a span of 5:17 from the sticks of four different players. Tripucka capped off the run with an unassisted score at the 10:47 mark.
Syracuse was able to pull back within four again off of a pair of JoJo Marasco goals before Wolf and Offit added a combined three more for the Blue Devils in two minutes to ice the victory as the time winded down.
Kyle Turri finished with 10 saves to become just the fifth goalie in Duke history to register 10-plus saves in three NCAA Tournament contests. Dylan Donahue led all Syracuse scorers with four points, while Marasco finished with three (2g, 1a). Dom Lamolinara made 11 saves for the Orange in 60 minutes of action.
Kevin Harvick.Kevin Harvick won a battle of survival in the Coca-Cola 600, emerging late as his contenders fell aside to cap an eventful Sunday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Harvick notched his second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win of the season and his second victory in stock-car racing’s longest race in the last three seasons. He led just 28 of the 400 laps to notch his 22nd win in NASCAR’s top division.
Kasey Kahne, last year’s winner of the 600, stayed on the track on old tires during the race’s last caution period, finishing second after leading 156 laps. Kurt Busch, pole-starter Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano completed the top five.
After several long green-flag runs during the early stages of the marathon race, the intensity picked up for the final quarter. Defending series champion Brad Keselowski crashed after a three-wide battle with rookie Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., sending the No. 2 Penske Racing Ford to a 36th-place finish.
The last of the night’s three red flags came out after 326 laps, just after a five-car melee involving Jeff Gordon, Aric Almirola, Mark Martin, Stenhouse and Bobby Labonte.
In the 333rd lap, five-time Sprint Cup champ Jimmie Johnson looped his No. 48 Chevrolet, collecting Juan Pablo Montoya, Paul Menard, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth, who had one of the race’s strongest cars in the early going. Kenseth led 115 laps but had just a 15th-place finish to show for it.
The race was halted just before the quarter mark for a broken nylon rope that fell onto the 1.5-mile track’s frontstretch. Kyle Busch, leading at the time, struck the cable first, damaging his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. The cars of Marcos Ambrose and Menard also suffered significant damage.
Speedway officials said that 10 fans were injured by the rope, a guide for the overhead camera. Three were transported to an area hospital for observation; seven were treated and released for minor cuts and scrapes at a track infirmary.
The race was stopped to clean up the length of cable, and under the unique circumstances, teams were given 15 minutes to make repairs and change tires under another red-flag period.
Busch’s crew replaced the right-front fender with a large patch and he continued tolead after green-flag racing resumed. Ambrose’s crew replaced a severed brake line, and NASCAR officials allowed the Aussie to return to the lead lap. Menard continued on after replacing a cut tire.
But Busch’s night went from sour to worse in the 251st of 400 laps when his car’s engine expired. After leading 65 laps, he wound up with a 38th-place finish.
“I thought we were about a fourth- or fifth-place car tonight and we’d been running first, second, third much of the evening,” Busch said. “Just catastrophic engine failure — seems to be that time of year again.”
Just one lap later, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s engine failed in a major way, dropping fluid that swept Greg Biffle, Dave Blaney and Travis Kvapil into the third-turn wall.
“We never have those problems,” Earnhardt said after his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet limped back to the garage for a 39th-place finish. “Hendrick guys always build good stuff. We’re not worried about this down the road. We will be all right.”
North Carolina has won its first ever NCAA championship in women’s lacrosse Sunday night as a goal by freshman Sammy Jo Tracy in the third sudden death overtime period lifted Coach Jenny Levy’s Tar Heels past top-ranked and undefeated Maryland 13-12 at Villanova Stadium.
UNC jumped out to a 9-6 halftime lead before Maryland stormed back to take the lead in the second half with five unanswered goals. UNC followed with three successive goals before the Terps (22-1) sent it to overtime.
Carolina freshman goalkeeper Megan Ward made a huge save on a Maryland breakaway in the opening seconds of the third sudden death overtime period which led to Tracy’s transition goal on the other end, giving the Tar Heels their first national title.
Raphael Hemmeler.Senior Henrique Cunha and sophomore Raphael Hemmeler of the Duke men’s tennis team run came to an end Sunday afternoon in the semifinals of the 2013 NCAA Doubles Championship at the Kahn Tennis Complex.
Cunha and Hemmeler, the second-seeded pair in the field, dropped a 7-5, 6-3 decision to No. 4 Jamere Jenkins and Mac Styslinger of Virginia. Cunha and Hemmeler went up two breaks, 5-2, in the first set, before Jenkins and Styslinger were able to break Hemmeler serve the following game. After a one hour and 20 minute rain delay, Virginia’s Jenkins and Styslinger were able to come from behind to win the first set, 7-5.
In the second set, Jenkins and Styslinger went up a break at 3-1, before Cunha and Hemmeler responded with a break three games later at 4-3. However, Jenkins and Styslinger were able to close out the match two games later, ending Cunha and Hemmeler’s run in the tournament.
With the loss, Cunha and Hemmeler close the season with an overall 39-5 record, including 24 victories over ranked opponents. The duo’s 39 victories on the season is second on Duke’s all-time charts in single season wins by a doubles tandem, two wins shy of the 41 victories posted by Cunha and Reid Carleton in 2010.
Cunha’s stellar career at Duke comes to a close. A four-time All-American, he will leave Duke owning or sharing 21 of the program’s records, including 151 wins in singles and 147 victories in doubles.
2013 NCAA Div. I Men’s Tennis Singles and Doubles Championships
May 22-27, 2013 at Urbana, Ill. (Kahn Outdoor Tennis Center)
Skye Bolt drove in two runs and North Carolina beat Virginia Tech 4-1 on Sunday in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game.
Taylore Cherry worked five solid innings in his first career start to help the top-seeded Tar Heels (52-8) earn their sixth ACC title but just their second since 1990.
North Carolina claimed its 19th straight victory against the Hokies (38-20) and denied them their first conference title since they won the Atlantic-10 tournament in 2000.
The Tar Heels finished up with an exhausting 4-0 record this week in Durham, and the middle two wins lasted a combined 32 innings.
They needed 14 innings to beat Clemson on Friday night and 18 to defeat rival NC State in a game that ended just before 2 a.m. Sunday – roughly 11 hours before the title game.
And while the rest of the Tar Heels may not have been fresh, Cherry (1-0) sure was.
The 6-foot-8, 270-pound freshman pitched just 3 1-3 innings all season and never worked more than one inning in any of his five previous appearances.
But he gave up five hits to the tournament’s hottest-hitting team, leaving after giving up a leadoff double to Tyler Horan in the sixth. The Hokies entered hitting .310 as a team while going 3-0 in their four-team pool.
The Hokies loaded the bases in both the fifth and sixth innings but got only one run out of it: Horan scored on Chad Morgan’s double-play groundout off freshman reliever Trevor Kelley in the sixth to pull Virginia Tech to 2-1.
That was the first of 11 consecutive batters Kelley retired while earning his second save.
All four of North Carolina’s runs came as a result of four Virginia Tech errors.
Landon Lassiter scored in the first when second baseman Alex Perez couldn’t handle Bolt’s sharp grounder off Eddie Campbell (2-4).
Two innings later, the Tar Heels had runners at the corners with one out when Bolt grounded to third, but Brendon Hayden’s throw to second pulled Perez off the bag and allowed Lassiter to score and make it 2-0.
The Tar Heels added two insurance runs in the eighth. Lassiter – who reached on a throwing error by Hayden – came around to score when relief pitcher Joe Mantiply fielded Bolt’s sacrifice bunt and threw it past Hayden and down the third-base line to push it to 3-1.
Brian Holberton’s sacrifice fly three batters later brought home Bolt to make it a three-run game.
2013 ACC BALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
MVP – Cody Stubbs, North Carolina
C – Garrett Boulware, Clemson
1B – Cody Stubbs, North Carolina
2B – Reed Gragnani, Virginia
3B – Sam Dove, Georgia Tech
SS – Chad Pinder, Virginia Tech
OF – D.J. Stewart, Florida State
OF – Chaz Frank, North Carolina
OF – Bryan Adametz, NC State
UT/DH – Mark Zagunis, Virginia Tech
P – Carlos Rodon, NC State
P – Kent Emanuel, North Carolina
Suarez-Malaguti.North Carolina senior Gina Suarez-Malaguti saw her All-America season come to an end in the national quarterfinals Saturday with a 5-7, 6-1, 6-4 loss to Texas’ Breaunna Addision at the Atkins Tennis Center on the campus of the University of Illinois. Suarez-Malaguti finishes the 2012-13 campaign with a record of 29-9 and just the fourth run to the NCAA quarters in school history.
The Pembroke Pines, Fla., senior rallied to take the opening set after trailing 5-3. With Addison serving for the set, Suarez-Malaguti broke to start a run of four straight games and eventually took the set, 7-5.
But the Longhorn freshman responded with a 6-1 second-set win to set up a third and deciding frame. Addison raced out to a 3-1 lead before Suarez-Malaguti got back on serve and briefly led, 4-3. Addison would take the final three games, however, and the match to advance to Sunday’s semifinals.
Despite the loss, Suarez-Malaguti compiled one of the most successful seasons in program history as a senior. The 2013 ACC Player of the Year earned All-America honors and led Carolina to an ACC regular season title as well as the ITA National Team Indoor Championship. She became one of just four Tar Heel players to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA singles tournament and defeated 17 ranked opponents on the year.
Sophomore goalkeeper Kyle Turri tallied a career-high 16 saves as Duke earned a spot in the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse championship game with a thrilling 16-14 victory over Cornell Saturday afternoon at Lincoln Financial Field. The title game appearance marks the fourth in program history and second under head coach John Danowski.
Duke improves to 15-5 on the season, while Cornell finishes the 2013 campaign with a 14-4 record. The Blue Devils are 13-1 in their previous 14 outings.
Wolf led the Duke attack with five points on four goals and one assist while Tripucka also posted a hat trick in the win. Fowler went 16-of-31 for the game at the faceoff x, collecting 12 ground balls. The junior from Wantagh, N.Y., also became the NCAA’s single-season record holder during Saturday’s contest with 319 wins this spring at the faceoff X. Pannell paced all Cornell scorers with five goals and two assists for seven points.
Duke will face Syracuse Monday, May 27 at 1 p.m. in the NCAA championship contest at Lincoln Financial Field. The game will be televised live on ESPN.
Down 7-2 in the ninth inning, North Carolina struck for five runs to tie it with the big blow a two-out, game-tying three-run homer by Brian Holberton. Then the Heels ended it with five runs in the 14th inning to cap a five hour and 16 minute game with a 12-7 victory over Clemson.
The Tar Heels, 2-0 in ACC tournament play, take on NC State, also 2-0, Saturday night. The two teams split a pair during the regular season with the rubber game of the match being rained out.
Against Clemson in the 14th, Cody Stubbs, who had four hits on the night, singled to lead things off. After a sacrifice bunt moved him to second, Stubbs made third on a passed ball. After a walk to Holberton, Mike Zolk got Stubbs home on a fielder’s choice to put the Heels up 8-7.
Zach Daly singled to load the bases before Chaz Frank wrapped up the game with a three-run triple down the right-field line.
Kara Cannizzaro scored four consecutive second-half goals and Abbey Friend scored three times as third-seeded North Carolina dominated second-seeded Northwestern, 11-4, on Friday afternoon in the NCAA Tournament semifinals at Villanova Stadium. The victory sends the Tar Heels to their second appearance in the national championship game.
The Tar Heels advance to Sunday night’s NCAA championship game to face the top-seeded Maryland who edged fourth-seeded Syracuse 11-10.
“I am really proud of my kids, my players,” head coach Jenny Levy said after the game. “I thought we stuck to the game plan, we trusted in each other. We are really excited, it was a great win, and I like how we executed. I thought we were poised, we stuck together and executed really well on defense.”
The win improves Carolina to 17-3 this season and ties the school record for wins in a season set previously in 2002 and 2010.
Carolina snapped Northwestern’s streak of eight consecutive appearances in the NCAA title game. The Tar Heels had been 0-4 against the Wildcats in NCAA Tournament play prior to Friday.
UNC, making its seventh appearance in the national semifinals and fourth in five years, also beat Northwestern 11-8 during the regular season on Feb. 22. The only other time a Kelly Amonte Hiller-coached Northwestern team has lost to the same team twice in the same season was last year against Florida.
Aly Messinger had a goal and an assist for UNC, and Sammy Jo Tracy, Kelly Devlin and Jessica Griffin all scored once. Emily Garrity and Taylor George dished out assists for the Tar Heels. Northwestern got single goals from Kat DeRonda, Amanda Macaluso, Kelly Rich and Alyssa Leonard. DeRonda added an assist.
Northwestern held Cannizzaro scoreless until the 16:19 mark of the second half. “In the first half, Northwestern did an amazing job, they totally shut me down,” she said after the game. “It speaks volumes of my teammates. My teammates carried us in the first half, and they produced when I was shut down. That’s what allowed us to explode in the in the second half”
Freshman Megan Ward played all 60 minutes in goal for Carolina, making seven saves and limiting Northwestern to four goals, tying the Wildcats season low.
The Tar Heels jumped out quickly and led, 4-1, at halftime, holding an opponent to one goal in a half for the third time this year. It was the 25th time in NCAA semifinal and final history that a team has scored just one goal in a half. It was the second time this season the Wildcats had been limited to one goal in a half.
Friend scored twice in the opening period, once on a free position attempt and once as she was falling to the ground in front of the Wildcat goal. Griffin also scored on a free position try, and Messinger tallied an unassisted goal on a nifty, stop-and-go move from the right of the cage.
After scoring the last two goals of the first half, the Tar Heels scored the first three of the second half to take a 7-1 lead with 22:57 to play. Friend scored her third goal at 27:47 on a pass from George off a free position attempt. Four and a half minutes later, Tracy took a pass from Garrity and scored for a 6-1 UNC advantage. Devlin’s free position goal made it 7-1. Leonard scored for the Wildcats with 20:29 left to break the 5-0 Carolina scoring run. Carolina held the Wildcats scoreless for nearly 26 minutes of play spanning halftime.
Northwestern scored two in a row to cut the Tar Heel lead to 7-3 with 18:55 to go, but Cannizzaro responded with back-to-back goals in a two-minute span to put Carolina back ahead 9-3. She followed with her third consecutive score at 11:57, putting back a loose ball for a 10-3 advantage. Her fourth in a row came just 22 seconds later, slipping it into the net for an 11-3 lead.
The Tar Heels advance to Sunday night’s NCAA championship game to face the winner of the second semifinal game between top-seeded Maryland and fourth-seeded Syracuse.
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Christina Gibbons scored a pair of goals to lead Cardinal Gibbons to a 3-0 victory over Hickory St. Stephens on Saturday afternoon for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association state 3-A girl’s soccer championship at Dail Soccer Field at N.C. State University.
