Later today, the North Carolina Tar Heels women’s lacrosse team will face off against Northwestern for the 2026 national championship. A victory would mark the fifth national title for the women’s lacrosse team, and their third in the last five years.
Further more, it would be the 53rd overall national championship from a UNC team. The men’s basketball team is probably the most famous of any at the school, and they account for six of them, while women’s soccer has been the most successful with 22.
With the school hoping to add to the trophy case later today, I have a simple discussion topic for today’s question of the day: What’s your favorite ever UNC national championship victory?
For my personal choices, I’m going to break this into two categories: basketball and non-basketball. As mentioned, basketball is the university’s most famous sport, and it’s the favorite and most followed team for many fans.
On the basketball side of things, it’ll be hard for anything to replicate how I felt about the 2009 team that cut down the nets. I followed that team in a way life just makes it harder for to these days: watching every game and spending hours reading about them. The losses in the 2007 and 2008 NCAA Tournaments in prior seasons felt like kicks in the gut, as I was equally sure they were going to win those titles as well. Finally getting to see Tyler Hansbrough and company bring home the championship felt like the culmination of an epic journey that I had spent years on.
As far as non-basketball sports go, I’m going to go with the “2020” field hockey title. I put 2020 in quotation marks as, since field hockey is a fall sport, that tournament did not actually take part that year, as COVID postponed that season into early 2021. (They also then held a 2021 season as well, which is why the first one of the year is recognized as 2020.)
In that championship game, top seeded UNC battled #2 Michigan all the way to overtime. Then, in front of a home crowd (as the final four was held at Karen Shelton Stadium), Erin Matson called game, scoring the sudden death winner to give Carolina their third-straight championship and ninth all time. It ended up being the third of four in Matson’s playing career in Chapel Hill, and she’s since added another since taking over as head coach.
Now, what about you? With hopefully another one being made today, what are your favorite UNC national championship memories?
