Emma Bozek's three-goal weekend carries field hockey team to Final Four

The No. 1 North Carolina field hockey team has a new leading scorer who’s scoring her goals in a far different manner than the previous leading scorer.

With three goals in the first two games of the NCAA Tournament — including two goals in a 3-0 win over No. 9 Duke Sunday — junior Emma Bozek upped her count to 15 goals, four more than anyone else on the team.

“She’s a star,” said Coach Karen Shelton after UNC’s 2-1 victory against No. 20 Liberty Saturday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. 

Bozek scored the first goal of the game against Liberty — her 13th goal of the season, which was enough to put her ahead of senior forward Charlotte Craddock, who had previously led the team with 12 goals despite an injury that sidelined her for seven games.

And Bozek is a star that shares the light. She was quick to point out that almost all of her goals have come as the results of what her teammates are doing on the field.

“Like I said before, they’ve just been setting me up for every goal I’ve had this season, and it’s all coming together finally, which is really nice,” Bozek said. “My two goals (Sunday) were because of some amazing passing combinations further down the field, so it’s just really nice to see that everyone’s working hard and working together.”

Bozek scored the second and third goals in UNC’s 3-0 victory against No. 9 Duke Sunday. The Tar Heels advanced to the semi-final round of the NCAA Tournament with the win and will face No. 4 Syracuse on Nov. 21 in College Park, Md.

Without Craddock, Bozek has proved to be a major asset for the Tar Heels, scoring nine of her 15 goals during Craddock’s seven-game absence.

“We’ve really been focusing on our combinations, and I think if that can lead us to an easier goal to score, then that’s kind of what we’re focusing on,” Bozek said. “So a few passes string together and then there’s someone wide open at the far post, I mean we’ll take that as opposed to (Craddock) just juking a few people and then scoring an amazing goal on her own.”

Craddock is an amazing player, and she can take the ball down the field and score all on her own. But UNC proved that by working together as team, it could hold its own — and Bozek proved to be a crucial factor.

Bozek started the season with two goals in the first two games, but did not score again until UNC’s 7-0 win against Longwood on Oct. 10 — the team’s first game without Craddock.

Saturday, Bozek scored her 13th goal on a corner, deflecting in junior Nina Notman’s shot.

On Sunday, Bozek tipped in the second goal of the game toward the far post after junior Casey Di Nardo shot toward the far post when she cut around a Duke defender to the outside.

She shut down Duke’s comeback efforts in the 67th minute when she and junior Emily Wold had an unselfish passing combination in front of Duke’s goalkeeper Lauren Blazing.

“I wasn’t really thinking much, honestly, because I passed her the ball, and I was like ‘Please score, please score,’ but I just happened to be running with the play, I guess, thank God, but she gives it back to me and I wasn’t sure I was gonna get it, but I just kind of laid out for it,” Bozek said. “But it was a really unselfish play by (Wold), and I give her props.”

Bozek said after the Liberty game, one thing the team needed to work on was nailing down the final touch or piece after a strong passing combination.

“If we can just focus on calming down when we get in the circle and the pressure areas of the field, and just finishing like we know that we can, I think that will really help us,” she said.

It’s safe to say Bozek executed like she said she would Sunday — all with the help of her teammates.

sports@dailytarheel.com