Owen Duffy and Dom Pietramala are taking the lion's share of shots for UNC. Can a volume shooting duo lead North Carolina to a title?

When you start the scout for North Carolina, it’s clear and obvious who is at the top. Anish Shroff captured it perfectly when he called a goal 8 7 7 cash now. Owen Duffy, number eight, assisted Dominic Pietramala, number 77, and the duo's nickname was born. They are the weapons that do the majority of the damage. Against Syracuse this week, Pietramala took 20 shots himself, scoring on six of them. Duffy took seven and was goalless, but had four assists. It’s been a familiar statistical breakdown for these Carolina games. We all saw it at work early in the year against Hopkins, when the pair took 31 of the team’s 40 shots in a 13-12 win. But is it sustainable? Can you win a title when you have two players carrying so much of the offensive load?

Duffy and Pietramala have taken 110 and 130 shots this year, respectively. The pair has taken 240 of North Carolina’s 579 shots as of the end of the regular season. That’s 41.4% of the team shots coming from two players. In college lacrosse, come tournament time, depth becomes critical. Depth in the midfield, particularly on defense, depth of scoring, having multiple faceoff options, these are things that can change the outcome of games. That sixth and seventh middie, or that third SSDM, those guys might not always win you a tournament game, but not having them can surely lose you one.

I wanted to see how frequently the DI men’s national champion has a shooting breakdown like North Carolina’s. Do the title winning teams get the bulk of their shooting from the top of the lineup? Or even anything close to what UNC is doing now? I looked at the last 20 national champions, starting back in 2004 with Syracuse. I pulled the number of shots taken by the top two shot takers on the team, and what percentage of total team shots it was. Here’s now it turned out:

Year	Team	Shooters	Shots taken	Percentage of Team Shots
2004	Syracuse	Mikey Powell, Brian Crockett	271	35.8%
2005	Johns Hopkins	Kyle Harrison, Jake Byrne	171	28%
2006	Virginia	Matt Ward, Matt Poskay	241	29.3%
2007	Johns Hopkins	Paul Rabil, Kevin Huntley	198	31.6%
2008	Syracuse	Mike Leveille, Steven Brooks	226	28%
2009	Syracuse	Stephen Keogh, Kenny Nims	182	25.8%
2010	Duke	Max Quinzani, Zach Howell	255	32.7%
2011	Virginia	Chris Bocklet, Shamel Bratton	195	28.1%
2012	Loyola	Eric Lusby, Mike Sawyer	317	42.4%
2013	Duke	Jordan Wolf, David Lawson	278	30.8%
2014	Duke	Jordan Wolf, Deemer Class	275	33.1%
2015	Denver	Wes Berg, Connor Cannizzaro	301	41.1%
2016	North Carolina	Steve Pontrello, Lucas Goldstock	237	32.8%
2017	Maryland	Matt Rambo, Connor Kelly	165	35.9%
2018	Yale	Ben Reeves, Jack Tigh	293	34.7%
2019	Virginia	Matt Moore, Michael Kraus	320	35.2%
2021	Virginia	Matt Moore, Payton Cormier	254	32.6%
2022	Maryland	Logan Wisnauskas, Anthony DeMaio	226	27.8%
2023	Notre Dame	Chris Kavanagh, Eric Dobson	227	31.3%
2024	Notre Dame	Pat Kavanagh, Chris Kavanagh	215	30.2%

The last 20 years of NCAA champions. The winner has had a duo take 40+% of the teams shots just twice. In fact, it’s more likely that the number is below 30% (six times) than over 40%. Other than those two 40%-plus years, the next highest only just approaches 36%. 

The most recent team to go over 40% was Denver in 2015. Connor Cannizzaro took 160 shots, Wes Berg took 141. The next highest on the team was Erik Adamson with 84. The difference between this and UNC is the quality of shooting up and down the Denver team. By year’s end, everyone who had taken at least 30 shots for Denver was shooting for a high percentage. There were seven players who took at least 30 shots, Tyler Pace shot 31.9% and was the lowest among them. Berg shot 41.1%, Adamson 41.7%, Sean Cannizzaro 42.4%. Zach Miller was at 37% on 70 shots.

The other national champion to have a high volume shooting pair is Loyola in 2012. Mike Sawyer took 161 shots, Eric Lusby took 156. The next highest was Davis Butts at 85, then Sean O’Sullivan with 71, then Chris Layne with 45. None of those three, however, shot over 25% on the year. 

Looking at Carolina, outside of the top two, percentages slide drastically. James Matan and Ty English have both reached the 50 shot plateau; Matan is at 28%, English at 36.5%. Next on the list is Spencer Wirtheim who’s at 17.5% on 40 shots. Caden Harshburger is at 20.6% on 34 shots. Nobody else on the team has cracked 30 shots yet. They're looking closer to 2012 Loyola than 2015 Denver right now.

The good news for Carolina is, it can be done, and they’ve got a comp for a team that’s already done it. The bad news is, a team that shoots this way has only won the title twice in the last 20 years, and the most recent one was a decade ago. Before even starting their conference tournament, Duffy and Pietramala have already taken more shots than 10 of those national champion duos did in their entire seasons. There is a challenging balance to all of this. Owen Duffy is one of the best attackmen in the country, Pietramala is one of the best shooters and pure scorers. Having them dodge and shoot less is counter intuitive. They are UNC’s best players, let them cook. But come NCAA tournament time, having two players carry the load is, historically, not a recipe for success. The trend has been bucked twice. It’s a wide open field this year. The field was wide open in 2015. Denver was a four seed and beat six seed Maryland for the title. In 2012, it was a bumpy road. Loyola was the one seed, but played a one goal game in both of the first two rounds of the tournament against unseeded Canisius and Denver, and ultimately played unseeded Maryland for the title. The only seeded team they beat was four seed Notre Dame in a pre-shot clock 7-5 rock fight. Loyola also started that year unranked. 

For Carolina, there's precedent. But it's recency is questionable, and the better path sure seems to be spread the wealth. Balancing usage of the stars and involving the supporting cast is something every contender has to do. Carolina has to find a way to let their dynamic duo be who they are, and to find the scoring depth that so many previous national champions find on their way to Memorial Day.