Hunter Roman On ACC PM As W-Lax Prepares For NCAA Tourney

As the women's lax team slowly comes down off the high of winning the program's first ACC title last weekend, the focus has started to shift towards the bigger goal ahead.

All year long, the ultimate destination is a sixth-straight Final Four appearance. The ACC title was just a nice little mental test before the real fun starts next week. BC will find out who its playing on Sunday during the selection show.

While eyes have already turned the first round, on Tuesday, junior defender Hunter Roman - who was a big part of an incredible stretch against UNC, holding the Tar Heels scoreless for the final 22:57 - was on ACC PM with Taylor Tannenbaum and Mark Packer to reminisce a bit more about the win and quite a memorable week.

"It's honestly just been an unreal experience," she said. "With all my teammates and all my coaches, it's just something that we've never had before. So, it's just an awesome experience to have first hand."

BC trailed UNC 7-4 at the half, but played like a different team in the second half. What changed? What was said?

"Something that's really awesome about our program is, we start our halftime where we kind of just talk as a unit and we let all the players, our leaders on both ends of the field and the draw circle just kind of hash things out, the X's and O's of what we think we can work on before the coaches get in," Roman explained. "I think just going into halftime, defensively, we kind of just talked about how we weren't really playing BC defense. How we needed to dig deep and have each other's back. How we're in this game. We're down at halftime, but, what we decided is we wanted to go into the second half firing and just switching that momentum and having each other's backs.

"That's something we really talked about a lot in the locker room."

The incredible scoreless run for the defense was highlighted by UNC taking just four shots the entire second half while BC caused 10 turnovers. Roman talked about how defense - like scoring - can often be contagious, like it was last Sunday.

"Yeah. I definitely think one of our big mottos on defense is just to get the offense the ball," she said. "It's something we were thinking about during all of those turnovers. Just, we want to get the offense the ball. That's the only thing we can control is just getting the offense back the ball. That momentum will swing our way and we'll be able to get it back together and win this game. I think the whole time, our mindset was just to win the game and there was nothing that was going to stop us or get in our way."

Following the comeback, head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein said her team needed to know it could win that type of game against that team especially. Her players felt the same way.

"I think, overall, it's just been shown how selfless and truly resilient this team is," Roman added when asked what she's learned about her squad lately. "Obviously, it wasn't ideal that we had gone down in the first half and we were playing catch up, but, this team in general, we have so much heart and belief in everyone. It kind of fires on all cylinders from offense, to defense, to the draw. I think this ACC championship was so special to us because we finished strong and we were able to bring it home and be there for each other."

A big reason why BC even had a chance to be in Sunday's title game was because of freshman Shea Dolce, who has taken over the starting role and ran with it. Dolce's performance in the semifinal on Friday will go down in Eagles history as one of the most clutch postseason performances of all time.

"Sometimes we forget she's a freshman and on this huge stage," Roman said. "I think she's just embraced this pressure that's been given to her and she's just been awesome. She's been such a great factor of our defense. When we have these defensive stops, she's the one patting you on the back when it turns into a goal saying 'that started with you.' Shea Dolce's awesome. It's awesome to have her behind us, talking through plays. We want to work hard so she doesn't have to face one-v-nothing goals. We just want to work hard for our goalie."

It wasn't all puppies and rainbows for the ACC champs getting back to Chestnut Hill though. Roman was asked to explain the travel issues the Eagles went through coming home from North Carolina. If nothing else, it was just another mental hurdle the team had to overcome before turning attention to the NCAA tournament.

That, and it also helped prepare them for any future trophies they might bring home. This team wasn't exactly sure how traveling as champs work.

"It was a little bit of a long day for us," she said. "Our flight got delayed a few times. We stuck through, we stuck together, we were all hyped up and excited. The trophy actually ended up going in the overhead bins. Right before the flight, we were wondering like, is this going to make it on the plane? Is this going to be a carry on? We were so unsure of what we'd have to do with the trophy. It was a long experience, a long day.

"Waking up at 8 A.M., having breakfast, spending the whole day with your team, your best friends. It was something that just got us through the whole travel experience and having delayed flights. Having everyone around you celebrating such an awesome win for us."

Of course, Roman was also asked about the 2007 men's trophy at practice and not being able to touch it and then finally winning one of their own. Even for a program with a national title, this was one of those "must have" items.

"Acacia has harped for the past three years that I've been on this team that we've never been good enough for the ACC Championship," she said. "This year, I think she put a huge emphasis on this game. This game wasn't just about beating UNC. This was about our team and playing to the standards we hold ourselves to. I think it's something really awesome coming from Acacia, coming from our defensive coach Jen Kent, Sam Apuzzo, Callahan Kent, it's just been so awesome for them to support us and really say it's all about our team and it's not about our opponent. It's about how we play and how we show up on game day."

The beauty of playing athletics in the ACC is the ability to create memories on and off the field with so many. Tannenbaum asked Roman' what her favorite memory from a weekend full of great ones was.

"Honestly, this is kind of like a weird side note, but...as you know, it's a lot to spend that much time, a whole week, every single minute of every day hanging out in the team room and each other's rooms, but I'd say at the end of the day, being able to hang out in one of our rooms and be like 'we got this . We have to make sure this was all worth it and win on Sunday,' and really just rally around each other.

"Every night we would have like a little group of teammates go into rooms and do rap battles and anything that would just keep us occupied. You have a lot of down time, but you also want to stay focused on the game plan and why you're in North Carolina. It was just awesome to be able to bond with my teammates all week."

Roman and the rest of the team now hope they have about four more weeks to bond and maybe even get the opportunity to throw one more shiny trophy into the overhead bins during a flight home.