But the combination of the sport she plays — lacrosse — where she’ll be playing it — UNC-Chapel Hill — and where’s she from — Cary — combine to give her a unique distinction. Cosentino, who graduated from Green Hope High in June, is the first North Carolina native recruited to the women’s lacrosse team at UNC in the program’s 14-year history.

The rest of UNC’s nine-player recruiting class hales from places that should come as no surprise — Maryland, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Lacrosse has long had a foothold on the mid-Atlantic states and New England.

Cosentino’s signing is an indication of how quickly the game has spread in North Carolina and how the quality of players has kept pace with that start- ling growth.

It should also send a signal to the rest of the ACC that North Carolina is becoming a fertile recruiting ground. In fact, UNC already has another in-state recruit.

Courtney McLaughlin, a senior at Apex High, has committed to UNC’s class of 2010, though she won’t be able to make it official until the early signing period in November.

“I think it’s going to be fun to be able to have people from around here watch me play there, and I feel like I’m setting a bar for [younger players] to know that they’re going to be able to go and play in college as well,” Cosentino said.

Having high-caliber lacrosse recruits in North Carolina is a day that UNC coach Jenny Levy has been building toward since the university hired her as its first, and to date only, women’s lacrosse head coach in the fall of 1994.

In an attempt to help grow the sport in the mid-1990s, Levy and her staff would host weekend lacrosse clinics. But no one would show up. They realized that the seed can’t grow if it hasn’t been planted.

“We had to back up and realize there was no lacrosse at all at the high school level for the girls and youth programs were nonexistent,” Levy said.

As the Triangle’s population boomed over the next decade, relocated northerners who came to the area brought with them a desire to play lacrosse, but no avenue in which to do it.

Small club teams started popping up. High schools started adding boys and girls teams. Year-round travel teams were formed.

After the Triangle Area Lacrosse League folded, Levy and two UNC assistant coaches founded the Carolina Fever, a year-round team intended to serve the Triangle’s burgeoning lacrosse population, in 2004. They also brought on Liz McNabb, the coach at East Chapel Hill High.

“I get a lot of calls from lots of families who’ve moved here who are looking for opportunities,” Levy said. “Eight years ago, I was not confident in the direction I could send them. Now I can say, we’ve got a nonprofit organization that is in place for the love of the game and to give girls the opportunity to play. Besides getting to high school, middle schools are growing, too. It’s a trickle down.”

About the same time the Fever was founded, Cosentino found lacrosse.

By the end of middle school, the travel and the injuries that came with her chosen sport, ice hockey, became too troublesome. So she traded in a hockey stick for a lacrosse stick in the eighth grade.

“One of my friends from school wanted me to play,” Cosentino said. “I wanted to play something, especially with a stick. So going from hockey to lacrosse was easier.”

The transition from the hockey rink to the lacrosse field was seamless.

As a freshman at Green Hope, she scored 24 goals and had 10 assists and helped the Falcons win the state championship. Her sophomore year, she was named a team captain and had 26 goals and 18 assists, again playing a vital role in the Falcons’ second straight state championship.

Her junior year, she led the team in goals (69), assists (24) and points (93) and guided the Falcons to the state semifinals. Last spring, she was slowed by an ankle injury midway through the season, but returned in time to once again guide Green Hope to a berth in the state semifinals.

Like Cosentino, McLaughlin didn’t grow up on a lacrosse field. Her game was basketball. As she entered high school, she was looking for something new. Apex was about to play its first varsity lacrosse season, so she thought she’d give it a shot.

She was a natural.

Last season, McLaughlin scored 50 goals and had 41 assists and helped Apex win its second straight state championship.

Also like Cosentino, McLaughlin hoped to continue playing after high school. To see it come to fruition is hard for her to graso.

“Not a lot of people get the chance,” McLaughlin said. “Everyone has dreams, and I’m living mine. There’s times I pinch myself. Is this really happening? But it’s good to know hard work pays off. That’s something I tell everyone.”

McLaughlin said UNC was always her school, even when she was playing basketball. As she developed into a prized lacrosse recruit and wondered if she’d have the chance to play her new sport at her dream school, her mother gave a plaque with the words, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of the dreams.”

“That’s something I just keep with me,” McLaughlin said, pointing to the pendant with those words inscribed on it she wears around her neck every day. “Anything’s possible.”

Even North Carolina becoming a lacrosse hotbed.