Two of Carolina’s Hall of Fame coaches did it for the 22nd time Sunday.

Granted, Mack Brown and Roy Williams get most of the national attention because they coach the two biggest sports at UNC. But while both the football and basketball Tar Heels were not playing over the weekend, Anson Dorrance and Karen Shelton showed again they’re the best in their sports and why both are long-time national Hall of Famers.

Dorrance led his women’s soccer team to another ACC tournament championship with a two-overtime win over previously undefeated Virginia at the Wake Med Soccer Park in Cary. The soccer icon won the ACC regular season and tournament championships, each for the 22nd time, but not all in the same years, showing what dominance Anson’s program has had over his 40 seasons at the helm.

Five of Dorrance’s 22 NCAA titles came in his first eight years before enough schools in the ACC began playing women’s soccer to recognize a conference champion. The national runner-up last year, Carolina women’s soccer aims to regain the title they last won in 2012.

Shelton’s dominant field hockey juggernaut won its third straight and fourth out of the last five ACC tournament championships by beating Boston College on the Eagles’ home field.

Over her 39 years at Carolina, Shelton has now led UNC to seven NCAA Championships, 11 NCAA runner-up finishes, those 22 ACC titles and 37 winning seasons. Carolina heads into the NCAA tournament as defending champion with a current 42-match winning streak. Shelton’s career record here is 688-164-9, second in NCAA history for career wins.

Both programs are top seeds in their respective NCAA brackets, a distinction that allows the two women sports powerhouses to open post-season play in Chapel Hill on their coaches’ namesake home fields.

Field hockey will play at Noon Friday at Karen Shelton Stadium against either Stanford or Miami-Ohio. The winner advances to the second round Sunday at 1 o’clock against the Duke-Iowa State victor.

The women’s soccer tournament opens on Dorrance Field Saturday evening at 6 pm against Belmont. The winner will move on to the second and third rounds next weekend, presumably still in Chapel Hill if the heavily favored Tar Heels advance.

The weather is supposed to warm up by the weekend, and with no other UNC sports teams in playoff action, what a great time to catch these two Hall of Famers and their latest championship editions in person.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related Stories
‹
Chansky's Notebook: Monday Night Showdown?
Is this the year for Duke-Carolina IV? Jay Bilas thinks so. Most college basketball fans cannot believe, with the schools going to the post-season virtually every year, that Duke and UNC have never met in the NCAA tournament. The Blue Devils and Tar Heels did play in the NIT semifinals back in 1971, with Carolina winning […]
Chansky's Notebook: Road Warriors
If the Tar Heels are truly a great road team, they’ll have to show it. Carolina has nothing to complain about with its No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region, although it would have been interesting to see if anything changed with a win over Duke instead of a one-point loss at the buzzer. The […]
Chansky's Notebook: Will The Chalk Hold Up?
The real ACC tournament begins today — with an asterisk or two. The chalk has prevailed so far at the ACC tourney in Charlotte, with the top eight seeds playing in today’s quarterfinal games. Seems like the old days when there were only eight schools in the original ACC, not the current subway jam of 15. But for the […]
Chansky's Notebook: Greatest Of This Time
Todd Melet) Going to Charlotte, the Roy vs. K debate doesn’t seem close. The so-called GOAT arguments are always tinged by bias for your favorite team or sentimentality. Some people still think Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback of all time when Tom Brady now has two more Super Bowl rings. The […]
Chansky's Notebook: Beware The Blow By
Transition defense will be the key to the Carolina-Duke rematch. So many angles exist for Saturday night’s blockbuster on ESPN, which strangely chose the 6 pm starting time after Zion’s injury and conflicting prognoses from Coach K’s day-to-day diagnosis and word from the Duke medical center that it was a 4-6 week knee sprain. And […]
Chansky's Notebook: Oh, No, Not Again!
Could you handle playing Duke three times for the third straight year? If the ACC tournament were this weekend, Carolina and Duke would in all likelihood be playing tonight in the semifinals – once again six days after their second meeting of the regular season. The tournament is still two weeks away, and things could change, […]
Chansky's Notebook: And Did I Mention…
It was almost as if the Tar Heels knew that Duke lost. Those who could follow both the Duke-Virginia Tech and Syracuse-Carolina games saw the Blue Devils’ 77-72 loss to the Hokies end at almost the exact time the Tar Heels were tipping off against the Orange. Of course, it didn’t happen this way, but I could […]
Chansky's Notebook: Looking Finer
Suddenly, Carolina can determine its own ACC — and NCAA — fate. When the basketball schedule came out, the unbalanced slate looked much to UNC’s advantage. Besides the four home-and-home series with Duke, State, Miami and Louisville, the Tar Heels had five single home games and five single road trips that appeared almost ideal. The […]
Chansky's Notebook: Bad But Beautiful
Finally, Duke-Carolina failed to live up to its legendary hype. This one might have been over before it started when the Blue Devils’ Superman slipped, blew apart his shoe and left the court with a sprained knee not to return. Zion turned Zeron with no full minutes, zero shots, free throws, rebounds, assists, blocked shots […]
Chansky's Notebook: Kinder and Gentler?
Two ways the Duke-Carolina rivalry has changed. When the Blue Devils and Tar Heels play, it is almost always a great game, tough and taut for most of 40 minutes. The common denominator making the greatest rivalry in college basketball is both programs have been national contenders for the last 60 years. The one obvious […]
›