Eight different players scored in UNC’s two weekend field hockey games

Not one to shy from making herself heard, Casey Di Nardo has a leading role in her team’s pregame huddle.

The North Carolina field hockey forward, all of 5-feet-3-inches with an outsized personality, said she pipes up before the opening whistle with a charitable plea.

“Let’s try and get a different scorer for every goal,” Di Nardo has told her teammates before each of the Tar Heels’ six games in 2013.

She doesn’t need to repeat herself — UNC has received her message.

Paced by eight different goal scorers this weekend, the Tar Heels warded off No. 15 Old Dominion 3-0 Friday night, then blitzed unranked Radford 8-1on Sunday afternoon in No. 1 UNC’s first appearances at Henry Stadium in 2013.

Di Nardo added to UNC’s goal-scoring ensemble with two strikes against Radford. After scoring twice in all of 2012, the sophomore now has five goals in this young season.

“I think last year, I was focusing too much on scoring,” Di Nardo said. “That’s all I wanted to do. I was like, ‘I have to score, I have to score.’ I think the reason I’m scoring more this year is ‘cause I’m not focusing on it as much, and it’s coming naturally.”

Di Nardo joins a troupe of UNC underclassmen seeking to replace the production left by departed seniors Kelsey Kolojejchick and Jaclyn Gaudioso Radvany. One of those understudies, sophomore midfielder and forward Emma Bozek, scored two goals in the first six-and-a-half minutes Friday night to bury ODU.

Accustomed to sporting a trio of prolific scorers, UNC (6-0) now have a balanced attack, spread more generously but just as vaunted.

“It is an emphasis,” said associate head coach Grant Fulton of UNC’s offensive wealth. “What’s good is we’re nice and deep and have a lot of girls who can score.”

In a meeting of the Tar Heels’ old guard and new scoring blood, Di Nardo swept in her second goal Sunday on a perfect feed from junior Loren Shealy. Charlotte Craddock, UNC’s leading scorer in 2012, sprung the two-on-none with an incisive through-ball from midfield.

Craddock, a junior forward, put UNC on the board Sunday with a seeing-eye shot through a maze of bodies. It was her third goal of the season, placing her in a tie for third on UNC’s team scoring ledger.

“Since we’re such a good passing team, we spread the wealth a lot because everyone gets touches on the ball, and we’re rotating a lot with different players being in the game,” said freshman midfielder Kristy Bernatchez.

Di Nardo, ever the opportunist this season, “finds openings where sometimes there aren’t openings,” Fulton said. He invoked Wayne Gretzky, a hockey legend of the frozen variety, when discussing Di Nardo’s nose for the net.

Yet Di Nardo would rather share, would rather see her team frustrate opponents with an arsenal of scorers that can defuse any defensive scheme.

“It’s harder to scout a team when we have so many scorers,” Di Nardo said. “On this team, it’s kind of impossible.”

It could remain impossible, too, so long as the Tar Heels heed Di Nardo’s pregame edict.

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