Field hockey falls to Terrapins in ACC title game

They talked about it again, Meghan Drake said. About taking the second half’s opening whistle as a call to action, about making life difficult for the country’s top-ranked team.

The No. 3 North Carolina field hockey team knew at halftime that urgency would have to prevail in the final 35 minutes of the ACC championship against No. 1 Maryland.

It didn’t.

Two quick goals in the second half and a steely Maryland defense consigned UNC (16-5) to a 2-0 loss Sunday afternoon in Newton, Mass., its third defeat in five games heading into next weekend’s NCAA tournament.

“Those were really hard,” said Drake of the Terrapins’ two goals in a span of 4:42. “We came out of halftime and we felt like we were ready, but when the whistle blew, it kind of seemed like we fell back into our habit of being a little on our heels and taking a couple of minutes to get into the game.”

Tentative starts have emerged as the common thread of UNC’s late-season hitch. Losses to No. 5 Old Dominion and No. 2 Syracuse to cap the regular season signaled a warning flare for what could happen if UNC eased off the throttle.

The flare went up again Sunday, but perhaps for good reason, coach Karen Shelton said UNC played its third game in four days against Maryland (20-1), having won its quarterfinal and semifinal games Thursday and Friday. Maryland sat idle Thursday with a first-round bye, then squeezed past No. 7 Duke in overtime Friday.

“To play back to back and have one day off and have to play again, I think just physically that’s a lot to demand in a physical sport like ours,” Shelton said.

That didn’t appear to be an issue in the game’s opening moments, when UNC kept pace with Maryland’s fleet-footed forwards. But the Terrapins went full octane in the second half, sparked by All-American forward Jill Witmer’s top-shelf rocket little more than four minutes in.

When Anna Dessoye potted a loose rebound minutes later, the spirited start that the Tar Heels envisioned had all but vanished.

“We talk about it, we talk about it,” Drake said, “but for some reason when we step on the field, we’re ready to do it — we just don’t execute it.”

The signs of a national-title contender remain visible. Hard-fought wins against No. 15 Wake Forest and Syracuse in the ACC quarterfinals and semifinals put UNC back on its usual elite ground. Maryland upset its footing, not its faith in what’s possible, Shelton and Drake said.

What’s possible is another deep run in the NCAA tournament, and beginning Saturday against either Liberty or Delaware, No. 3 seed UNC will have a chance to find what it still hasn’t found.

“We have the talent on this team, we have the teamwork on this team, we’ve got the coaching,” Drake said. “We have all the components that we need. We just gotta get it all together, all on the same page.”

Atop that page will read, “Play hard at the sound of the whistle.” UNC has yet to author the rest of the chapter.

sports@dailytarheel.com