One More Time, One More Rubber Match For All The Marbles

There isn't much more that can be written about a Boston College-North Carolina matchup on the lacrosse field.

We can try, but whatever gets printed is nothing more than an addendum to a rivalry that's quickly developed into the best matchup in the sport. It's already been long established that the two teams operate in an elite group capable of winning a national championship in any given year, and it's been noted time and again how often they prove it against one another.

The story of proof is given over and over how UNC and BC split more than a dozen meetings by alternating wins over the past decade. Each time, the Tar Heels won the ACC Championship, but the Eagles avenged losses with wins in the national tournament. The games are almost always one-goal results, resulting in a razor-thin margin of difference that's virtually unidentifiable until the final score is counted.

It's almost not worth recapping that history for an umpteenth time, so let's ignore it and simply move onto something that matters more than the next chapter of the BC-UNC rivalry: the national championship, the ultimate prize, which is at stake on Sunday when the top-ranked Tar Heels play the No. 3 Eagles at Homewood Field in Baltimore, Maryland.

"We play the best teams all year," head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein said this week, "and it's always the same thing [against every team]. There's one or two really good players, followed by five or six really good supporting players, [and] dangerous transitions, sick draw teams - we've been dealing with this all year. It'll be nothing new. We've just got to be ready to step up and be better [this weekend]."

Rematches and rubber games are something of a trend by the time the national tournament rolls around, but it's been a particular point of emphasis throughout BC's five-season streak to the national final. In 2017, the Eagles faced three of their five NCAA opponents during the regular season and avenged an early-season loss to Syracuse by beating the Orange, 21-10, at the Carrier Dome. A win over Navy in the national semifinal echoed a 20-11 win from earlier in the year, but, like the four-day stretch in Maryland from that year's March, a loss to the flagship Terrapins finished the season in the national championship game.

A similar situation nearly unfolded a year later when Syracuse drew into fourth-seeded BC's bracket, but a 12-11, double-overtime win by Princeton eliminated the Orange before the ACC rivals could rematch in Newton. Instead, the Eagles, who received a bye, ran through the Tigers with a six-goal lead before beating fifth-seeded Stony Brook in a rematch of an NCAA First Round game in 2016. Again, BC avenged a loss by beating the Seawolves to advance to a Final Four that was hosted at the Long Island university's LaValle Stadium before beating Maryland in the national semifinal one week later.

The next year, BC beat North Carolina during the regular season but lost in the ACC Tournament in a game that was the only blemish on the Eagles' otherwise-perfect postseason resume. It cost them the No. 1 overall seed and sent them on a collision course that came to fruition with a double-overtime win over the Tar Heels. Two days later, though, a loss to Maryland, the team BC beat in the 2018 national semifinal, once again saddled the home side with postseason disappointment.

"It's really fun," Walker-Weinstein said. "Even if we haven't played [a team], if you're trying to play for a national championship or win a national championship, you're going to run into [teams like] Maryland at some point. The biggest thing is that it's a little more exciting because it's [always] new, but it keeps our players on their toes."

It doesn't know how to reach a fever pitch, and the bubble never breaks. Last year's national championship run culminated with a win over Syracuse after the Orange eliminated the Eagles in the ACC semifinals. It kept BC from playing for the conference championship and handed a season series victory to 'Cuse after the teams split the last two games of the regular season, but the Eagles, as they often find, laughed last by hoisting the trophy at their rivals' expense.

The championship itself was the third straight national tournament game against an ACC opponent, and it meant more given its hardware representation. It followed a one-goal win over top-seeded UNC after the Tar Heels smoked BC, 21-9, during the regular season, and it was two games after the Eagles eliminated fifth-seeded Notre Dame in their third win of the year over the Fighting Irish.

"It's become a big rivalry," Walker-Weinstein said after beating UNC last year. "It's something we'll always cherish because Carolina has such a rich tradition, but I think every year, we're building on the tradition that we have. [It's] an incredible thing to be able to beat them with the team that they have."

Lacrosse itself is a fast-growing sport, but the rivalries offer an appeal that doesn't normally exist at other schools. Every single one of these games is a battle, a hard-fought war, and it usually builds to this crescendo that seldom leaves fans disappointed. It's more than just the frequency in that regard, and it's why simply listing results of even-split wins among national title contenders still requires some context.

Somewhere out there is a little girl picking up her stick for the first time, and somewhere out there, someone is watching a lacrosse game for the first time. They don't know much about free positions or draw controls, but they know these brands and players somehow elevate their game against one another. The emotion and the drama captures them, and it makes them fans for life. They choose their side and instantly find a rival, one that they know they'll see time and again, over and over, with constantly-rising stakes.

And when they think they've seen it all, BC and UNC will find a way to do something new.

The 2022 NCAA Division I Women's Lacrosse National Championship will be contested on Sunday at 12 p.m. when No. 3 Boston College and No. 1 North Carolina face-off from Homewood Field in Baltimore, Maryland. The game is available on national television on ESPN with online streaming available through the network's Internet and mobile app platforms.

One More Time, One More Rubber Match For All The Marbles

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