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STONY BROOK, N.Y. —With 31 seconds left in North Carolina’s final game of 2018 against the same team that handed it its season-opening loss, Marie McCool drives hard past James Madison senior leader Haley Warden – perhaps the hardest she ever has – and whips a diving goal into the upper left hand corner of the net.

It was one for the highlight reels, but it was also McCool’s final score of her illustrious career as a Tar Heel.

All that she could muster in that moment was that she didn’t want her team to lose by four. Despite McCool’s team-high 10 draw controls and six points on four assists and two goals, North Carolina ultimately fell to the first-time NCAA championship participant 15-12.

“I just didn’t want to give up,” the Tewaaraton finalist said at the postgame press conference, holding back tears. “I was going to keep playing my best and play the game I know I can play. That’s just something I wanted to do and I wanted to go out hard.”

“All the little things you remember about athletes, we’ll always remember that Marie was always hungry,” UNC coach Jenny Levy said. “She’s just a competitor.”

That heart and hustle have been mainstays for the senior do-it-all midfielder.

Coming off an impressive summer with the U.S. women’s national team, winning gold at both the FIL Women’s World Cup and IWGA World Games, McCool finished her career with three ACC titles and one national championship as a two-time finalist for the highest honor in college lacrosse.

This season alone, the senior from Moorestown, New Jersey, became the first player in ACC history to repeat as its midfielder of the year with a well-balanced stat line of 165 draw controls, 84 points on 61 goals and 23 assists, 35 ground balls and 23 caused turnovers.

In her career, McCool has recorded a grand total of 295 draw controls, 246 points, 183 goals, 146 ground balls, 81 caused turnovers and 63 assists.

“We get a lot of great kids at Carolina and they just love the school, they love their teammates and Marie’s no different,” Levy said. “She loved everything about being a Tar Heel and she worked hard every day.”

Now, her work ethic has been passed to the next generation of great Tar Heels.

Since the start of the season, with North Carolina replacing nine starters, McCool has led the young squad, which started six underclassmen against the Dukes on Friday. She molded them “to get their wings,” as Levy described it, which included freshman attacker Jamie Ortega, who had a team-high four goals in the loss and 70 goals on the year.

“The torch has been passed as we watch Marie have her cap and gown on and leave a legacy,” Levy said. “It’s now Jamie’s turn.”

And that legacy has already taken hold.

As her Moorestown High School (Pa.) coach Deanna Knobloch said, “I’ve been coaching 27 seasons and had the privilege of coaching a lot of exceptional lacrosse players, but Marie McCool is definitely in a class by herself. There’s no one to ever come through like her.”