Mids stun Tar Heels, head to first final four

Navy rallies from three-goal hole vs. defending champs

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Aly Messinger knows a little something about going to women’s lacrosse final fours.

The first-year Navy assistant coach went to two as a player at North Carolina, earning Most Outstanding Player honors last spring while leading the Tar Heels to a national championship. So when she gathered her current players at a team meeting Friday and told them what it takes to earn a trip of their own, the Mids listened intently.

“She said you guys need to go out there and be relentless,” goalie Ingrid Boyum said.

Boyum and her teammates heeded Messinger’s advice, battling back from a three-goal second-half deficit and an injury to their senior captain Saturday to upset the defending national champions, 16-14, in an NCAA tournament quarterfinal at Fetzer Field.

The victory sends Navy to the final four for the first time in its 11-year program’s history. The Mids will play Boston College on Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Foxborough, Mass.

It’s a matchup few outside of coach Cindy Timchal, her team and the large contingent of Navy fans in the stands on a sunny Saturday afternoon in North Carolina believed was possible against one of their sport’s traditional heavyweights.

“We certainly beat a team with an unbelievable history of excellence in lacrosse,” said Timchal, the winningest coach in the women’s game and the winner of eight national championships at Maryland before coming to Annapolis in 2007.

“We’ve been playing good lacrosse, so we felt we could stay close and make it a good game. I don’t think we even looked at the scoreboard to the end.”

It’s a good thing Timchal and the Mids didn’t pay much attention to the scoreboard, because after leading nearly the entire game their chances at winning took a severe turn for the worse when North Carolina (17-3) scored five straight goals to take a 13-10 lead.

To make matters worse, they lost their leader, Meghan Hubley, who also happens to be their best defender, during that stretch.

It was while Hubley was being treated for an injury to her right leg that her teammates got together and reminded each other about being relentless.

And for the rest of the game, they were. Video:

Boyum set the tone by making a spectacular kick save after North Carolina’s Carly Reed got behind the defense on a restart for a one-on-one chance against the Navy goalie. Although the Tar Heels scored shortly thereafter to build the game’s biggest lead, Boyum’s save seemed to energize the Mids.

North Carolina scored only once more over the final 171⁄2 minutes, allowing Navy (18-4) to come roaring from behind.

“That was a huge momentum swing,” said freshman Kelly Larkin, who had four goals and an assist for the Mids while becoming only the fourth player in program history to reach the 100-point mark in a season. “Having our senior defender go down, we immediately got into a huddle and I could tell the mentality of the game had changed. From that moment on we decided to fight and that this game was going to go our way. We were doing to dictate what was going to happen.”

North Carolina briefly regained the lead when Sammy Jo Tracy scored her fifth goal of the game. But with Jenna Collins taking charge on draw controls and her team going a perfect 9-for-9 on clears in the second half, the Mids kept the defending national champs on their heels for the remainder of the game.