The men’s lacrosse club team had seen it before. In the season’s first game, N.C. State fell to North Carolina by only one goal.
This time around, in the Wolfpack’s final game before its fall tournament in two weeks, it was down 10-8 in the fourth quarter with only 10 minutes remaining.
“That’s when we really stepped it up,” Rick Pineda, the team’s president and senior in anthropology and political science, said.
Two goals — one by senior Tony Ingram and the other in which Ingram assisted, pitted the game at 10-10.
And then, with only 1:30 left in the match, John Kimball, a junior in business management, gave State the lead for good. His second goal of the game would give the Pack an 11-10 victory against the Tar Heels.
“The intensity was hardcore,” Pineda said. “We played a tough game — it’s just always a hard game to play when it’s against Carolina.”
But the win wouldn’t come without a late challenge from North Carolina, as the team would get possession on the ensuing face off and have a change to go against the Wolfpack’s goalie, Paul Van Hoover, a senior in mechanical engineering.
Hoover, who broke his thumb two weeks before the match, had to play the game while wearing a cast. Pineda, a long-stick midfielder, said his goalie played a huge part in the team’s victory.
“It was all up to the defense,” Pineda said. “Our goalie was playing with a broken thumb. He couldn’t play the entire game, but he played when it counted.”
The game went back and forth throughout the entire match as neither team had more than a two-goal lead.
“At one point we were up two, and then in the fourth they were up two,” Pineda said. “Neither team was able to pull away.”
Pineda said it was exciting for the team to get the win on Homecoming, especially with the alumni game starting right after his team’s win.
Next up for the Pack is a tournament at Duke on Nov. 18 – 19. The competition will take place on Duke’s campus and will include teams such as Princeton, Towson, Duke, Virginia, Miami and many others, according to Pineda.
He said the team will try to promote the tournament across campus throughout the next two weeks.
The tournament will wrap up State’s fall season, which comprises only five games and the tournament at Duke.
According to Pineda, the longer season is during the spring, when the team will travel more and play a 17-game season.