With leading point scorer and Tewaaraton Award finalist Owen Duffy ruled out with a lower body injury, the UNC men’s lacrosse team needed someone else to power the offense in its first-round NCAA Tournament game against UAlbany on Saturday.
Enter Dominic Pietramala, who outscored the unseeded Great Danes by himself en route to a 24-6 win for the third-seeded Tar Heels. The redshirt junior’s 10 goals – seven of which came in the first half – broke the program and NCAA Tournament records for goals in a game.
Carolina came out firing and never stopped, building a 7-1 lead at the end of the first quarter that grew to 12-2 at halftime and 19-4 at the end of the third. The Tar Heels’ 24 goals were their most since 2023 and most ever in an NCAA Tournament game. They outshot UAlbany 51-28, including 36-18 in shots on goal. They won the ground ball battle 34-28 and the faceoff battle 20-11.
Pietramala has now scored 53 goals this season and 136 in his career, breaking the respective program records. The single-season record had stood since Luke Goldstock finished the 2015 campaign with 50 goals, and the career record had stood since Bert Fett graduated in 1975 with 128 goals to his name.
Pietramala wasn’t the only Tar Heel to rewrite the program record book on Saturday; junior Brady Wambach won 15 faceoffs to give him 278 wins on the season, blowing past the previous mark of 269 set by Shane Walterhoefer in 2009. Wambach is 15 more faceoff wins away from passing Walterhoefer’s career record of 723.
With the win, UNC advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals for the first time since 2021. The Tar Heels will face either #6 seed Syracuse or unseeded Yale, who play each other at 5:00 PM ET on Sunday. Carolina’s quarterfinal game, which will be played at Hofstra, is set for May 16 at a time TBD and will be broadcast on ESPNU.
