Scouting North Carolina

North Carolina is in the midst of a 14-game winning streak that dates back to last season. The defending national champs are out to their best start in program history at 10-0 on the year and 3-0 in league play, coming off a 14-13 win at No. 5 Boston College. The Tar Heels have topped six nationally ranked teams so far this season and allow just 8.6 goals per game, while scoring 18.2 per game themselves.

Abbey Friend leads the attack with 35 goals so far this season, good for fourth in the country. Aly Messinger is next on the team with 28 goals, while Sydney Holman has scored 23 goals and assisted 21 more.

Sarah Scott helps lead the defense with 18 ground ball and nine caused turnovers, while also winning 41 draws. Megan Ward has been the go-to in cage for the Heels and boasts an 8-0 record as well as a .402 save percentage. Caylee Ward has picked up the other two wins, appearing in nine games and making 41 saves, good for a .569 percentage.

Hokie Notes

-- Junior Megan Will’s four goals against Coastal moved her to 10th place on Tech’s all-time scoring list. She has 96 career goals to date.

-- Junior Cawley Bromley had a career game at William & Mary, scoring three goals and finishing with four points and make it back-to-back four-point games against Coastal.

-- Against No. 6 Duke, the Hokie defense forced the Blue Devils into a season-high 18 turnovers with their average of 10 coming in the first half, also holding them to a season-low four first-half goals.

-- Entering the week, two Hokies rank among the top 30 in the nation in their respective categories. Junior Meg Bartley ranks the highest of the pair, tied for 9th in the country averaging 5.67 draws per game.

-- Redshirt senior Julia Heaps set a career high with five goals and seven points in the season opener at James Madison.

-- Redshirt senior Julia Heaps became the second Hokie on the 2014 roster to rank among the all-time best as her three assists against High Point broke her onto the list.

-- Junior Meg Bartley is the only player to have scored in every game so far this season.

-- In this week’s polls, seven of Tech’s opponents are ranked nationally, with another receiving votes.

-- Seniors Julia Heaps, Kelly Naslonski, Lindsay Roche and Becca Niles captain the Hokies this season.

-- Tech welcomes 10 freshmen this season, as well as two new assistant coaches.

Last Time Out

Behind a high-intensity offensive effort led by Megan Will and Jessi Thon, the Virginia Tech lacrosse team took down Coastal Carolina, 18-9, at Thompson Field Saturday afternoon. Will put away four goals and assisted four more in the victory, while Thon added a career-best three and three to spark the Hokie attack.

Tech heated up quickly on offense as Cawley Bromley found Thon for Tech’s first score. Coastal evened things up less than a minute later with an unassisted goal, but Bromley sparked a 9-0 run for the Hokies with back-to-back goals to regain the lead and create a comfortable distance.

Meg Bartley, who finished with four goals in the game, got things going for the Hokies in the second half, and Will’s goal three minutes into the new half began a run that would bring the game to a ten-goal difference. Bartley won the draw that followed Will’s goal and that gave her sole possession of third place on Tech’s all-time draws list. She finished the game with seven, which ups her career total to 163. Will also made history in the game as she joined the all-time scoring list, ranking 10th with 96 goals so far in her career.

Record Watch

Junior Meg Bartley has already broken into the all-time top 10, and ranks third with 163 career draws. She has also made her second notch on the single-seasons draw list, ranking second with 69 last year.

Redshirt senior Julia Heaps broke into the all-time assists list against High Point earlier this year. She currently ranks eighth all-time with 40.

Junior Megan Will’s 42 goals last season landed her on the single-season scoring list, ranking seventh. She broke into the all-time career scoring list over the weekend with four goals against Coastal Carolina, upping her total to 96 scores, good for 10th in Tech history.