No. 1 Tar Heels fall to No. 2 ODU in field hockey

With an early lead on Friday, it looked as though the No. 1 North Carolina field hockey team would continue its reign as the nation’s top team.

But then it found resistance in the form of No. 2 Old Dominion.

With three unanswered goals, the Monarchs dethroned the Tar Heels 3-1, dealing them their first loss of the season.

UNC opened scoring on just its second penalty corner of the game in the 17th minute, as redshirt freshman Samantha Travers rocketed a shot past the sprawling ODU goalie for her sixth goal of the season.

But the Monarchs wasted no time in answering back. In the 18th minute, Kati Nearhouse made poor contact on a shot less than 10 yards from the UNC goal. As the ball rolled slowly away from the goal, forward Kathryn Kirk poked a shot past UNC goalie Caitlin Powers to tie the game at one goal apiece. It was Old Dominion’s only shot of the first half, and the game entered halftime knotted at 1-1.

Coach Karen Shelton said her team lost some intensity after scoring its first goal.

“We always talk about a two-minute time period after we score a goal and we had a lapse,” Shelton said. “It was a soft goal at a critical time.”

Less than 10 minutes after the start of the second half, Old Dominion took the lead 2-1 on a shot fired by Christy Longacre. Similar to Travers’ goal for UNC in the first half, Longacre scored off a penalty corner, assisted by Rebecca Condie and Kelsey Smither.

Strong defense by Old Dominion prevented UNC from scoring in the second half as the Tar Heels missed all seven shots they took in the period.

“Give ODU full credit. They had great defense,” senior midfielder Katelyn Falgowski said. “They shut us down and we weren’t able to quite adapt as we needed to.”

As UNC struggled to convert on corners, UNC goalie Sassi Ammer was substituted for an extra field player with 9:22 left in the game. The extra attacker did not help the Tar Heels though, who failed to score on four penalty corners in the final 10 minutes.

Soon after Ammer went out, ODU effectively sealed the game when forward Emma Batten gathered the ball, dribbled through the UNC defense and calmly scored into the Tar Heels’ empty net, giving the Monarchs the 3-1 lead.

The Tar Heels continued the strong defensive play they have showed all season, limiting the Monarchs to 6 shots and only 2 penalty corners. On offense, though, UNC missed several opportunities.

“We had 11 corners tonight and we scored on 1 of them,” Shelton said. “We need to do better than that.”

Shelton and Falgowski both added that Friday’s loss exposed areas where UNC can get better.

“We need to be a little bit more fundamentally sound,” Shelton said. “We’ve got the talent and we need to get tougher.”

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