Covering Carolina athletics beyond men’s basketball and football, with dedicated reporting on women’s basketball and baseball, in addition to covering other sports that rarely draw media attention
It must be the weekend of 1–0 victories in Carolina athletics. One day after the men’s and women’s soccer teams won ACC tournament semifinals on Thursday in Cary by that score, UNC’s field hockey team held on for a 1–0 win over Miami of Ohio at Lakeside Field in Evanston, Ill. in the Tar Heels’ NCAA tournament opener.
CHAPEL HILL — Carolina’s missed chances in regulation and consequential whistle proved costly. After nine consecutive trips to the ACC field hockey tournament championship game, all of them ending in titles, the top-seeded Tar Heels made a rare early exit. A video review wiped out a goal from star fifth-year forward Ryleigh Heck, whose penalty stroke in the 58th minute went high.
CHAPEL HILL — The route here may not have been familiar to a Carolina field hockey program with a rich history, but expectations didn’t change as the postseason began. The No. 1 seed in the ACC tournament for the fifth consecutive season, the No. 10-ranked Tar Heels led 34 seconds in and rolled. Five players scored in a 6–0 first-round victory over Stanford at Karen Shelton Stadium.
DURHAM — Seventy days after Duke dominated North Carolina in an August field hockey scrimmage at Williams Field, the roles were reversed for one half. A young Tar Heels team that has endured plenty of adversity since then looked more like a championship team. Sensational fifth-year forward Ryleigh Heck scored two goals, and Carolina held on for a 2–1 victory to earn the top seed in next week’s ACC tournament in Chapel Hill.
After one week as an unranked team for the first time in program history, North Carolina is back in the NFCA Top 20 poll this week. The Tar Heels (5–4, 2–1 ACC) are No. 12 in the poll released Tuesday morning. UNC was No. 11 two weeks ago, but was unranked last week after being No. 11 the week before because the poll requires teams to have at least a .500 record.
North Carolina used a suffocating defense to finish off a weekend sweep in the Bay Area. The Tar Heels continued their dominance of California with a 4–0 field hockey victory Sunday over the No. 17 Bears at Underhill Field in Berkeley, Calif., allowing only one shot, which wasn’t on goal.
After a Wednesday court ruling, Sietske Brüning, Ryleigh Heck and Dani Mendez will play in North Carolina’s field hockey games this weekend in the Bay Area.
North Carolina football kicker Rece Verhoff and three field hockey stars can return to competition after an Indiana judge granted an injunction Wednesday that restores their fifth season of eligibility.
CHAPEL HILL — As a young North Carolina field hockey team works to improve, it’s going through a process that’s not common for the program: learning from losses. That has sometimes meant taking risks to create some momentum. On Sunday at Karen Shelton Stadium, one of those risks was Coach Erin Matson pulling goaltender Merritt Skubisz with seven minutes left for an extra attacker, trailing by a goal.
It’s a wait-and-hope situation for the No. 11 North Carolina field hockey team, which could get a big boost if three stars from last year can play a fifth season.
North Carolina stayed at No. 7 in the women’s soccer poll ahead of Thursday’s clash with No. 2 Duke while the Tar Heels fell in the field hockey and volleyball polls. The field hockey team (3–3), No. 2 in the preseason poll, dropped six spots to a season-low No. 11, and the volleyball team (4–2) fell seven spots to No. 15.
Football kicker Rece Verhoff and former field hockey stars Ryleigh Heck, Dani Mendez and Sietske Brüning have all joined an amended complaint filed in Monroe Circuit Court in Indiana seeking a court order that would grant each of them a fifth season of eligibility for this school year.
After a pair of victories last weekend, North Carolina jumped five spots in the Top 25 field hockey poll to No. 5 and two stars who led the victories earned swept weekly ACC honors.
CHAPEL HILL — While the shots were hard to come by for No. 10 North Carolina, goaltender Merritt Skubisz and her defense kept the Tar Heels in the game. The sophomore goaltender got her second shutout of the weekend to push No. 2 Princeton into a shootout, where Carolina prevailed 3–2 to earn a 1–0 victory Sunday at Karen Shelton Stadium.
CHAPEL HILL — After one-goal losses and its first 0–2 start in five years, North Carolina’s field hockey team clearly has turned an early corner. The young No. 10 Tar Heels, who lost 67% of their goal production from last season’s Final Four team, steamrolled Penn 7–0 Friday evening at Karen Shelton Stadium in the Conference Crossover event.
