Hofstra lacrosse team upsets No. 8 North Carolina

Hofstra combined its typically stingy defense with an efficient performance at the other end of the field Saturday. The end product brought down one of the top men’s lacrosse teams in the nation.

Dylan McIntosh scored three goals and Jack Concannon had nine saves on 15 shots to lead Hofstra to a 12-6 win over No. 8 North Carolina at Shuart Stadium. Ryan Tierney added two goals and two assists and his father Seth won his 100th game as head coach of the program.

“I’m thrilled with our guys,” Seth Tierney said. “We out-teamed them . . . and I’m awfully proud.”

Hofstra (2-2) came in ranked first nationally in goals allowed per game (6.0), and after a slow start to the season its offense has come alive as well. After being held to a combined nine goals in its first two games against Ohio State and Villanova, the Pride surged to a 14-2 win over Stony Brook on February 27.

The momentum carried into Saturday as Hofstra took an 8-0 lead into halftime and was ahead 10-1 in the third quarter. North Carolina (6-2) had three consecutive goals to close the period, but a series of close-range saves by Concannon in the fourth kept the Tar Heels from getting closer. McIntosh scored with 12:48 left and Brendan Kavanagh scored with under five minutes remaining to extend the Pride’s lead to 12-4.

Kavanagh and Alex Moeser had two goals apiece and Dylan Alderman and Jimmy Yanes both added a goal and two assists for Hofstra.

The Pride’s strong play at both ends of the field was supplemented by a dominant performance in the middle of it, where Kyle Gallagher won 13 of 20 faceoffs.

“You can’t say enough about what he did today,” the coach said of Gallagher, who also scored a goal in the second quarter.

When North Carolina was able to get possession, they had a difficult time beating Concannon, who came into the day with the nation’s fourth-best save percentage (62.2) and played like it.

“A few of those shots came up right in the crease,” he said. “I’m seeing the ball and I’ve been watching film on the shooters to find tendencies. I settled in and tried to play my game and make some saves.”

Hofstra’s attack had no such difficulty with the North Carolina defense and a more patient approach yielded its most efficient shooting performance of the season.

“We were getting deep into possessions and we had a ton of them, too,” McIntosh said. “We made them count.”

Added Ryan Tierney: “They were falling asleep after the third or fourth dodge . . . and we kept going hard.”

All of that culminated in a postgame surprise for his father.

“When I heard it on the loudspeaker in the handshake line, I wasn’t even aware of it, to be honest,” the 12th-year coach said of the 100-win milestone. “It’s not something you keep track of I’m just thrilled it was here at Hofstra with Ryan and all those guys on the field.”