Tar Heel Field Hockey Hosts Liberty NCAA Tourney 1R

UNC’s field hockey team, ranked number one in the nation, will host the No. 20 Liberty Flames in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday at Francis E. Henry Stadium. The Flames earned the right to play the Tar Heels after they defeated Richmond 3-1 in a play-in game on Wednesday afternoon.

Saturday’s game is scheduled for 11:30am with Northwestern playing Duke after the game concludes. The winners of the two games will meet Sunday at 2pm with a spot in the National Semifinals on the line.

UNC is led by junior midfielder Emma Bozek, who enters the match leading the team in goals (12), assists, (10) and points (34).

Under the watchful eye of head coach Karen Shelton, the Tar Heels are making their 31st appearance in the tournament that has been held 34 times. They also enter as the number one seed in search of their seventh national title and first since 2009. In order to do so, the Tar Heels must first deal with a red-hot Flames team.

Shelton is expecting a tough game from Liberty, “There going to come in with no fear, they have nothing to lose. And they have the revenge factor. So we know that they’re going to be as good as any team we can handle I think. I think that as the number one seed we would have had a little friendlier match-up in the first round but I think this year in particular there’s so much darn parity throughout the country that every team that got in has a chance,” despite defeating them earlier in the season.

Liberty (14-7; 4-0) enters the match on a 5 game win streak that started after the team fell to North Carolina 4-0 back on October 19. Over the course of the win streak the Flames have outscored their opponents by a score of 21-3 and have seen their offense jump to second in the nation, tied with the Tar Heels, averaging 3.6 goals per game.

If UNC is going to be victorious they must once again shut down Flames Junior forward, Sarah Gripe. Gripe, has a team high 45 points including 19 goals, needs one more goal to set a Liberty single-season record. However, not only will the Tar Heels have to deal with Gripe but also they will need to find another way to solve Flames Junior goalkeeper Mallory Cuccio.

Cuccio is having a career year as she has posted personal best in wins (13), saves (79) and shutouts (4), including the 1-0 shutout of then number four Stanford in the NorPac Championship game just to make the play-in game.

Sophomore midfielder Kristy Bernatchez doesn’t believe her team has many holes.

“We don’t really have one weak spot on our team. When we play other teams we try to attack where their weak spots are, so whether it be in the back or if they have weaker forwards. We don’t really have one spot that is weak,” Bernatchez says. They will need to stay that way if they want to become national champions once again.

Tar Heel Field Hockey Hosts Liberty NCAA Tourney 1R

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