Third Consecutive Final Four Is "A Dream Come True"

When Boston College lost to North Carolina in the ACC Championship, Acacia Walker-Weinstein looked at the gathered media reporters and simply said, "The season's not over."

After her Eagles' Final Four-clinching victory over Princeton on Saturday afternoon, she had another opportunity to deliver a moment to the reporters looking for the next headline-writing quote. She didn't disappoint.

"It's just one game to win," she said. "We're going to get better and tackle 'today.' One game."

The team gave one last moment of drama at Newton Campus, defeating the visiting Tigers by a 17-12 score. The win stamped BC's third consecutive trip to the national semifinal and established a rubber match with the No. 3 Tar Heels next weekend at Johns Hopkins' Homewood Field.

"It's a dream come true," Walker-Weinstein said. "These girls work so hard and sacrifice so much. For us to go back to the Final Four is amazing. Very few student-athletes get to do it, and this will be our third time (in a row). We just have to focus now on Friday to get down (to Baltimore), to get prepared and to keep getting better."

It wasn't necessarily the easiest road. Princeton provided a true test with its speed and tenacity, and the Tigers rallied from an early one-goal deficit to take a 6-4 lead with under eight minutes remaining in the first half. Sam Apuzzo scored three times in that last bunch, with two assists from Kenzie Kent, to push BC ahead by one at the end of the period, but the Tigers tied things up in the first minute when Tess D'Orsi fired a shot past Abbey Ngai after rotating to the top of the fan.

"(Princeton is) phenomenal," Walker-Weinstein said. "We were prepared for how good they are, but they have ridiculously good firepower. Their defense is steady and consistent. They're so fast that I knew it would be hard to create separation with or without the ball."

That tie score did something to the Eagles, though, and it became the last time the Tigers truly threatened. BC adjusted to the Princeton style of play and rattled off five straight goals to take a 12-7 lead, then scored seven of the game's next nine goals to open up a 17-9 advantage with 4:35 left on the clock. It ended any threat to the home team's dreams, despite three late goals to close the scoreboard to its final tally.

"We had a shutoff on Elizabeth George," Walker-Weinstein said. "She's too dangerous. We had matchups with the other two (leading scorers), with Sheila Rietano, Dempsey Arsenault and Elizabeth Miller, but Hannah Hyatt did her job on Kyla Sears really well. It was a great defensive unit day."

The win sets the final stop for an anticipated collision course between the ACC's two top teams. The No. 2-seeded Eagles defeated No. 3 North Carolina on the road in March with a 14-8 regular season victory, but the Tar Heels returned the favor in Chestnut Hill during the ACC Championship with a 15-13 win of their own. It remains the only blemish of a 21-1 season for a BC team that hasn't lost a regular season game in over two seasons but hasn't yet clinched a postseason trophy.

"We got totally knocked out (by UNC)," Walker-Weinstein said. "You either win or you learn. I'm grateful for that because (the loss) revealed a few things that you cannot possibly reveal when you win 20 games in a row. But that's over and in the past. The girls have improved in the past three weeks, and that's all we asked for. We're a different team in our X's and O's. We're very much more steady than we were three weeks ago."

The winner of the BC-UNC game will draw either Maryland or Northwestern in the national championship game on Sunday as part of a full chalk Final Four. All top four seeds advanced after the No. 1 Terrapins and No. 4 Wildcats defeated Denver and Syracuse, respectively, and all potential opponents have recent history against the Eagles. BC defeated Northwestern in March, and it played Maryland in each of the last two Final Fours.

Third Consecutive Final Four Is "A Dream Come True"

Players Mentioned

Sam Apuzzo

Dempsey Arsenault

Hannah Hyatt

Kenzie Kent

Elizabeth Miller

Abbey Ngai

Sheila Rietano

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