North Carolina Levels Florida Lacrosse In NCAA Semifinal

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — They’d been here before. They’d spent a year working to get back to this moment. They’d even come more prepared this time, having faced this opponent once this year already and three times in the last two seasons.

And while the Florida lacrosse team wasn’t sporting the same lineup it did for most of those previous contests, starting eight different players from last season’s NCAA semifinal berth, the new faces had been productive.

There was a thought that this would be the moment a program that had danced among the best — one of six teams to make three Final Fours since 2012 — would finally break through, making its first national championship. But as the dreary skies above Gillette Stadium set in, the afternoon became bleak.

No. 4 Florida failed to defeat No. 1 North Carolina for the second time this year. The Gators lost 20-4, coming up short in the Final Four for a second straight year on Friday.

“I think that now this is the standard,” Florida graduate student goalkeeper Georgia Hoey said. “I think that this team will be back. Teams to come will be back.”

The afternoon wasn’t always that downtrodden, though. Venturing into the 53-degree New England spring, the Gators (20-3) didn’t seem out of their environment. From dancing in the pregame huddle to interactions with a row of scantily clad fans bearing the letterings of “Go Gatorz” on their chests, Florida started energetically.

Frannie Hahn, a redshirt freshman attacker and one of Florida’s starring new contributors, opened the game with a quick charging goal. UF’s supporters were easy to identify, each donning a peach-colored “Gator Girls Stay Hot” shirt, which erupted with the first-minute score. The hope of toppling the lacrosse giant, a team that had defeated Florida 14-9 in Gainesville in February, was quickly simmering.

From there, the teams exchanged pleasantries, each scoring with ease — the second straight game Florida had four different first-quarter goal scorers — and it held a 4-2 lead to end the first period. The starting Gators, including junior attacker Gianna Monaco, who led the team with 95 points and had two early assists, returned to the bench to great cheers.

“I was really proud of the group in the first quarter. We came out with a fire. We started getting draw controls, which are obviously so important. I thought we were sharing the ball well,” Florida coach Amanda O’Leary said. “We were definitely cooking.”

But in the same time it took to establish that lead, years of building and a historic season slipped out of Florida’s grasp.

Florida and North Carolina (21-0) entered the afternoon in the top 6 in scoring offense and defense. A belief persisted that if Florida leaned into its defense, containing North Carolina sisters Chloe and Ashley Humphrey, a redshirt freshman and a graduate student attacker, respectively, the Gators could drag out a messy win.

But the pair, which led UNC in points this year (each with over 100), got their way, following North Carolina’s lowest-scoring quarter of the NCAA tournament with its highest.

And it came in the form of a stampede. North Carolina scored 10 consecutive goals in the second quarter, blanking UF in the process. (The Gators had allowed 27 goals through three tournament games, holding opponents to 8.95 goals per game this season, for whatever it’s worth.)

With the hope of halftime, Florida returned to the field with 30 minutes to produce a program-defining moment. But the Tar Heels seemed to even take offense to that, scoring another seven goals in the third quarter. Chloe Humphrey capped off her sixth double hat trick with seven goals, while Ashley Humphrey added four assists to set the NCAA Tournament assist record with 16.

The Gators’s offense during that time? Goose egg.

Florida didn’t score after the three-minute mark of the first quarter, failing to induce even the spark of one of its patented comebacks (nine come-from-behind victories this year). The Gators rarely maintained possession for any significant period, and while they took more shots than UNC in the first quarter (eight to six), they ended the game with only 15 (UNC had 38). North Carolina also won 20 draw controls to Florida’s seven, recorded 13 clears to Florida’s 10 and 13 turnovers to Florida’s 16.

The Tar Heels threw the knockout punch in the second quarter. But as the afternoon progressed, the game slowly drifted into a form of Gator torture. UNC never seemed to realize its opponent was unconscious.

“I think when we saw them in February, they were still a work-in-progress,” O’Leary said. “I think what Carolina does is, they just put you on your heels … They are the No. 1 team for a reason. They are pretty — pretty impressive.”

The already gray sky turned to an even darker form as the evening befell Gillette Stadium, and all of Florida’s hopes for something different — an opportunity to establish itself on the national stage — had been suffocated.

In O’Leary’s 16 seasons as UF’s coach, arriving with the birth of the Florida program in 2010, the Gators have risen into the dominant ranks of collegiate women’s lacrosse. Very few programs string together consecutive Final Four appearances, especially with a roster that’s second-, third- and fourth-highest point scorers didn’t contribute last season.

Even further, O’Leary created an offensive beast with eight different players that scored 20 goals this season. The only other remaining team that did that?

North Carolina.

Florida found itself in a Final Four field that included the last three national champions (Boston College in 2024, Northwestern in 2023, UNC in 2022) and came up short amid North Carolina’s climb back to the top. That, in itself, is representative of how far Florida has come, something UNC coach Jenny Levy made clear:

“Making it to the Final Four is not easy.”

The Gators enter the eight-month offseason looking for answers about how to get over the Final Four hump. O’Leary thinks the experience on Friday while disappointing will help Florida gear up again.

“Every time that a team competes in a Final Four, you learn a little bit something more.”

So now that feeling looms. What the Gators felt as they strutted into Gillette’s skeleton, as they bowed their heads while sprawled across the Patriots-logoed walls and floor, appearing as if having just escaped battle. What they felt as they clasped their hands against the cold cement before heading to the bus, looking back at a season that can now easily feel all for not.

Amid all those emotions, one thing stands true: Florida knows its place in the lacrosse world.

“This is our goal,” Hoey said. “This is our standard now.”

While Florida heads back to Gainesville, the Tar Heels will play No. 3 Northwestern (19-2) for the national title at noon on Sunday (ESPNU). Northwestern defeated No. 2 Boston College (19-3) in Friday’s other semifinal, 12-11.