Gold Medal Brought to Chapel Hill: Collegiate National Champions 2011

This past weekend UNC Women's Team Handball won its third straight collegiate championship by undermining West Point Black by one goal - a goal that came at the hand of Diva Desai, president of the club for the past two years.  This was Diva's last goal in collegiate handball, but at least she went out on top, and would later receive the Top-Scorer Award of the tournament.

UNC outscored West Point Gold in its first game Friday night, tying West Point Black the following day, and rounding out Saturday with a win against Dynamo.  

During the first match against Black, UNC lost three of its starters: Sylvia Exum (knee injury), Steph Tan (ankle injury), and Julia Taylor (red card).  Keeping composure UNC held WP Black to a tie, knowing they would be back for blood in the final.

Before the final match Coach Wade Sutton gathered the team in a nearby gym with a surprise.  CTHC Men's Coach Myles Bacon, who was suffering the loss of his mother, Edna Bacon, a long time supporter of Carolina Team Handball- especially the women's side,  phoned in and gave the women an inspirational message, triggering a series of events that would lead to another gold medal.

Coach Wade Sutton, with nostalgia, remarks on the final match,

"...gold medal match  [was] to be played on Sunday against West Point.  Our first half defense was great as we held WP to 7 goals and we held a three goal advantage at 10-7.  West Point would never go away though and kept fighting back and even took a lead at one point.  In the last 2 minutes WP tied the game and we took a lead on a great bounce shot (FAR CORNER of course) by KP but WP came down and tied it again.  With 11 seconds left Kaela got the ball at circle and was fouled from behind setting up a penalty shot.  With the score tied 16-16, Diva stepped up and hit the penalty shot to give us a goal lead and WP was unable to score.  So with a 17-16 victory, we are College Champions for the 3rd year in a row."

With the UNC men's team taking third place and women's with the gold, it was a good weekend to be a Tar Heel.

This blog post is dedicated to Edna Bacon, may you rest in peace and forever be in our hearts.