By R.L. Bynum

No. 1 Carolina advanced to the women’s lacrosse Final Four for the 14th time as the Tar Heels pursue their fourth national championship and second unbeaten full season.

The top-seed Tar Heels (19–0) built a 10-goal third-quarter lead and earned a 19–10 victory Thursday night at Dorrance Field in Chapel Hill over Princeton in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals as Ashley Humphrey (below photo) broke the NCAA career assist record with five to give her 250.

“I’ve been really lucky to have so many great finishers around me that have made my job easy feeding,” she said in a postgame interview on ESPNU. “But I think the value of watching film and learning tendencies has been really helpful in increasing my level of my vision. But I couldn’t do it without everyone around me.”

UNC will meet No. 4-seed Florida in a national semifinal on May 23 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.

“Our whole extended family is from Boston, so it’s going to be a family reunion,” said Ashley Humphrey, who has two sisters, Chloe and Nicole, as teammates. “But this whole season has been incredible, just being able to share every one of these moments with them.”

The Gators (20–2) ousted Duke 11–9 on Friday in Gainesville, Fla. No. 3-seed Northwestern (which beat Penn 17–12) will face No. 2-seed Boston College (which beat Yale 18–11) in the other semifinal.

Carolina, which won at Florida 14–9 on Feb. 15, got four goals from Eliza Osburn.

Just like all season, Princeton tried to reduce Ashley Humphrey’s effectiveness by face-guarding her, and it didn’t work.

“I think our philosophy with the face guard all season long has just been to let our six play against their six,” she said. “And, frankly, I would take our six over any other six defenders in the country. So I think we try to force defenses out of the face guard to then open up other options. It makes my job really easy when I just get to kind of hang out and watch them do their work.”

The teams traded goals in the first nine minutes before Carolina went on an 8–0 run, led by two Marissa White goals — also getting scores from Osburn, Chloe Humphrey, Kiley Mottice, Caroline Godine, Ashley Humphrey and Kaleigh Harden — before UNC took a 9–2 halftime lead.

After UNC opened up a seven-goal lead on goals by Ashley Humphrey and Godine, Princeton (15–4) scored back-to-back goals. UNC scored three straight goals, two from Osburn and one from Olivia Vergano. After back-to-back goals by Princeton’s Jamie MacDonald, the Heels led 14–6 after three quarters.

The Tar Heels added five fourth-period goals from Osburn and White early and from Reilly Casy and Addison Pattillo in the final 88 seconds.

NOTES — UNC is 44–22 in NCAA tournament play, and won national championships in 2013, 2016 and 2022. … The Tar Heels went 22–0 in winning the 2022 title and were unbeaten at 7–0 when the 2020 season ended early because of COVID-19. … Princeton coach Jenn Cook is a former UNC player and assistant coach.