UNC Lacrosse: Tar Heel women advance in NCAA Tournament, men fall short

Over the weekend, the 2025 NCAA Lacrosse Tournaments were finally in full swing, and both North Carolina Tar Heels teams were in action. There were some mixed results, so let’s take a look at what went down in this year’s opening rounds.

The UNC women went into their tournament with an undefeated record and the top overall seed, and they held true to that status in their tournament opener. Taking on Clemson in the round of 16, the Tar Heels doubled them up 18-9 to advance.

Kiley Mottice scored the opening goal of the game for UNC just over a minute in and Carolina would never be tied or trail again. They led 5-2 after the first quarter and continually built up their lead over the course of the rest of the game, never really being in danger in the second half.

Marissa White ended up leading the Heels with five goals, while Chloe Humphrey had four, and Motice three. Meanwhile, Ashley Humphrey was credited with an assist on seven of Carolina’s 18 goals, and goalie Betty Nelson made four saves.

Next up for UNC will be Princeton, who took out the #8 overall seed Johns Hopkins on the road. That game will take place this Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET, with Carolina enjoying home field advantage at Dorrance Field.

As for the Carolina men, they couldn’t quite match the women, as they came up short against Richmond, falling 13-10.

The Tar Heel men got off to a pretty good start, as they opened the scoring and kept the Spiders off the board in the first quarter, leading 3-0. They even went up by as many as four before Richmond came back to stay within three going into halftime.

The Spiders opened the second half of a three-goal run to tie the game up, but UNC answered back with two goals to retake the lead. However, Richmond eventually managed to wrestle away control. They outscored UNC 4-2 over the last five minutes of the third quarter to tie it going into the fourth. While Carolina did grab the lead back briefly, Richmond scored the final four goals of the game, as the Heels couldn’t continue answering the bell.

Owen Duffy and Dominic Pietramala both scored three goals each in the losing effort.

As we continue on to the respective final fours over Memorial Day weekend, there’s still one Tar Heels’ lacrosse team marching on in the NCAA Tournament.