This story was originally published in US Lacrosse Magazine following the 2016 NCAA championship game. Because ESPNU is airing championship games from previous years this Memorial Day Weekend to fill the void left by COVID-19, we are resharing this article as it originally appeared.

Immersed in the very land from where the term Tar Heels originated, the North Carolina women’s lacrosse players huddled in the center of Finley Fields. The sun struggled to peek through the clouds as a gloomy March haze cast over them at a secluded practice complex within walking distance of the Mason Farm Biological Reserve where pine trees have stood since before the Civil War. 

The waters of Chapel Creek trickled along the backside of the grass field, a serene sound interrupted only by a stray golf ball flying through the trees from a neighboring golf course. 

“Who are we?” coach Jenny Levy blurted out.

The Tar Heels had just suffered back-to-back losses to No. 1 Maryland and No. 2 Florida. Players’ answers varied.

“A family.”

“Hardworking.”

“Dedicated.”

“Are we really?” Levy responded. “Is that true, or are you just telling me and each other that because it sounds like the right answer? I want a real answer, and I’m going to keep asking until we get it.”

Then Aly Messinger, the 5-foot-4 senior attacker, looked up at Levy and said, “We’re a team in progress.”

While there were no wrong answers, Levy drew a line between an easy answer and a good answer. A good answer would come from the heart and be believed by all.  

Levy wanted her team to think hard about its identity. Messinger’s answer was a step in the right direction. 

“We were a team in progress, and that’s OK,” Messinger said three months later, after leading North Carolina to its second NCAA championship with two goals and four assists in a 13-7 win over previously undefeated Maryland. “You want to be a team that’s constantly in progress and going upward, rather than downward. ... You want to feel the pain of losing, because it only makes you get back up and push harder.”

Sophomore Marie McCool realized in that moment that they didn’t know their true identity, but that was OK. Soon, any doubts still lingering for North Carolina would be scraped off its heels. 

The Messinger family has been a part of Carolina lacrosse for years. Messinger’s sister, Kaitlyn, graduated from North Carolina in 2012. Their uncle, Roy, played for the Tar Heels men’s team when it won NCAA titles in 1981 and 1982. 

After watching her older sister practice on an official visit, Messinger, who finished her senior year at West Morris Mendham (N.J.) high school with 100 goals and 77 assists, setting school records for career points (400), goals (263) and assists (149), approached Levy to say she was coming to North Carolina, too. 

“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Levy. “Did you tell your family?”

Messinger had not told anyone. Not even her father, Craig, who played lacrosse at Penn, taught her the sport and was with her on the visit.

“You’re the first person I told,” Messinger said.

Messinger, who weighed just 72 pounds entering high school, showed Levy early on that she would not easily be intimidated.

“I’ve always been small,” she said.

After her team-in-progress proclamation, Messinger had the game-winning assist against Virginia, scored the game-winning goal against Northwestern and delivered North Carolina’s first ACC championship since 2002 with a goal in overtime to beat Syracuse.

“That just shows how clutch of a player she is,” McCool said. 

After the Tar Heels defeated Penn State 12-11 in the NCAA semifinal at Talen Energy Stadium in Chester, Pa., for their ninth one-goal win of the season, Messinger and fellow senior Steph Lobb sent a group text to their teammates, requesting them to come to their hotel room at the Sheraton Society Hill in Philadelphia.

It was the night before the final game of the year. Only two teams were left standing — two-time defending champion Maryland and third-seeded North Carolina. For the third time in four years, the two would meet in the NCAA championship. The Tar Heels stunned Maryland 13-12 in triple overtime in the 2013 final, regarded as one of the best women’s lacrosse games ever played. The Terps came back from a three-goal halftime deficit to beat North Carolina 9-8 last year.

“We were there last year and had unfinished business,” senior goalie Megan Ward said.

Looking back, this year’s seniors wish they had said more to inspire last year’s team. Messinger and Ward, who memorably denied Brooke Griffin in overtime, both played big roles as freshmen winning it all in 2013. As did Sammy Jo Tracy, who scored the triple-OT winner.

Messinger called the meeting an intervention.

“Why do you really want to win this game? What does this game mean to you?” Messinger asked. “I wanted to go out with no regrets. I had the privilege of winning a national championship and losing one. I wanted to go out winning one rather than losing one.”

Carly Reed, a junior attacker who had a team-high five goals against the Nittany Lions, was a player who back in February said she considered her team a family. But in the hotel huddle, it finally felt real. 

“I knew we were winning, because there was so much heart and so much emotion and everybody was going to go out there and do everything for each other,” Reed said. “You could actually feel it.”

One step closer to a good answer. 

Maryland was the overwhelming favorite to win its third straight NCAA championship. It finished the regular season without a blemish and reversed its fate from last year with its first-ever Big Ten tournament crown. Its senior class went 44-0 at home under the leadership of three-time Tewaaraton winner Taylor Cummings.

Naturally, the Terps took over national headlines, while the Tar Heels felt underrated. 

“We were a little underestimated because we had some rocky games, a lot of one-goal games,” Messinger said. “People thought, ‘Carolina’s good, but are they great?’”

While Levy recognized the Tar Heels weren’t “a sexy team” with “crazy stats,” they believed in themselves.

“The story is for the media and the game is for the players,” assistant coach Katrina Dowd said. “I don’t allow them to buy into that until it’s all said and done. We talk about the journey and the story, but right now we have 60 minutes to make history. We have 60 minutes until the story is complete.”

Ward watched game film the night before and knew the Terps would throw hitches and shoot high. Levy had analyzed film from Maryland’s Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, Penn State and Northwestern games and devised a game plan to be ready at all times to slide to Megan Whittle and Cummings, the Terps’ top offensive threats. 

Maryland had improved since its 8-7 win over North Carolina on Feb. 27, but Levy said more than anything, “The bigger change was in us, realizing who we were and what we were capable of doing collectively as a team.”

Levy walked her players down memory lane in her pregame speech, reminding them how great their teammates were — how McCool was double-teamed by Duke with 30 seconds remaining in the ACC semifinal, lost the ball and then chased her pursuers 100 yards down the field to secure the one-goal win; how Mallory Frysinger checked Kayla Treanor to stop Syracuse dead in its tracks when they were two men down in the final seconds of the ACC final; and how Caylee Waters made critical saves in relief of Ward against Penn State in the NCAA semifinal to get them back to the championship game. 

“Everyone doubted us,” Tracy said. “It fueled our fire. It only made us come together and play harder.”

For the last time this season, Hendrick hopped in the center of her team’s huddle to lead the pregame chant: “We’re all we got! We’re all we need!”

The intensity of the tradition was at its peak that Sunday afternoon. Levy said only one percent believed North Carolina could win the championship, and that one percent was in the Tar Heels’ locker room. 

“We don’t need anything else to be successful,” Hendrick said. “You’ve got to buy in right now. You’ve got to believe right now.”

North Carolina scored six straight goals and led 6-4 at halftime. Messinger found every seam in Maryland’s vaunted defense, assisting on four of the goals.  At halftime, she addressed her team one more time. “Those who have the will to win cannot be beaten,” she said. 

“She speaks the least, [but] says the most,” Reed said.

Messinger opened the second half with her first of two goals. The Terps came within one four minutes later on Cummings’ only goal of the game, but again, the Tar Heels answered with a five-goal run. North Carolina was well on its way to dealing Maryland its worst loss since 2007.  

“There were 15 seconds left and we were up by six and Mallory and I were yelling at our defenders to not let up, as if there was some way were going to lose in the last 15 seconds,” said Ward, who bounced back from a shaky start against Penn State and went the distance with 14 saves. “That dedication to play the full 60 minutes, which we were focusing on all season, it was never that high until that championship game. I think that’s why we won by such a large margin.”

For all the talk about Cummings and the Maryland dynasty, history will show that North Carolina and the Tar Heels seniors were just as good.

“Remember, we kept asking all year, ‘Who are we?’” Levy said to her team afterward. “We’re damn national champions!”

Now that’s a great answer.