University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Syracuse (NCAA Semifinals)
Tar Heels' Season Ends In Final Four Penalty Shootout
November 22, 2014 | Field Hockey
UNC finished the season 19-4, while Syracuse improved to 18-5 and advances to its first NCAA championship game. The Orange will meet Connecticut, a 1-0 winner over Albany, on Sunday for the championship.
“Congratulations to Syracuse,” UNC coach Karen Shelton said. “I thought that was a tough game by two really good teams.
“I'm really proud of the University of North Carolina field hockey team. What drives us is to try to bring distinction to our University, and I think the way these kids compete they do that even without winning. So I'm proud of our group. We've been led all year by our seniors – they were really spectacular all season long and they played hard today. We have nothing to hold our heads down about.”
The Tar Heels, playing in the 19th final four in school history, got on the board first, on a penalty corner in the 16th minute. On their first corner of the game, junior Emma Bozek deflected classmate Nina Notman's shot into the cage to put her team up 1-0.
Syracuse answered two minutes before halftime. UNC goalkeeper Shannon Johnson saved Emma Russell's first shot, but the Orange junior gathered the rebound and shot again to tie the game at 1-1.
Although the shots would be even by the end of the game, the Orange outshot the Tar Heels 8-2 in the first half. “I'm proud of Shannon Johnson, our goalkeeper,” Shelton said. “I think she kept us in it today, especially in the first half.”
SU took the lead in the 48th minute. Junior Alyssa Manley sent a ball to the far post where freshman Lieke Visser tipped it in and put the Orange up 2-1.
With 9:24 remaining in regulation, UNC called a timeout and Shelton pulled her goalkeeper in favor of an extra field player. The gamble paid off, as the Tar Heels drew a penalty corner and scored off of it four minutes later. In the 65th minute of play, Notman's flick from the top of the circle tied the game at 2-2. Junior Emily Wold assisted on the play.
Carolina immediately put Johnson back in goal, and the teams played the last five minutes of the game without a score.
In the seven-aside, 15-minute overtime periods, both teams had opportunities. Carolina had six shots in the first overtime and two in the second, but wasn't able to score. The Tar Heels had one corner in the first overtime and one in the second, and Syracuse had one in the second. “When we pulled the keeper, we played those last nine minutes the way we should've played the entire game,” said senior back Samantha Travers, the team captain. “That first 15 minutes of overtime, I think we hit the post once and missed by an inch a couple of times. It was really unfortunate, but that's how sport goes.”
Said Shelton, “You've got to be good, and you've got to be lucky.”
The game then went to a penalty shootout, in which five players from each team go one-on-one with the goalkeeper, alternating turns. In the first round, each team made three goals. Since the tie still hadn't been broken, the game went to sudden victory with alternating shots. Syracuse's Manley made her attempt first, and Wold's shot was saved, putting SU ahead for the win.
Due to the cold temperatures – in the mid-30s throughout the game – the field wasn't watered, for fear that it would freeze and create unsafe conditions.
UNC fell in a shootout to Connecticut in last year's NCAA semifinals. The Tar Heels played four other overtime games in 2014, but Friday's was the first shootout since the previous year's semifinals.
This year was the fifth in a row that the Tar Heels have reached the final four but ended the season without a title. Travers, who will graduate this December with a double major in sociology and communication studies and a minor in entrepreneurship, has been part of all of those teams, the first during a redshirt year in which she was sidelined by an injury. Her parents, John and Judy, traveled from Zimbabwe to watch the end of their daughter's college career and were in the stands on Friday along with hundreds of other Tar Heel fans, families and alums.
“I just played my last game and that's pretty emotional,” said Travers, one of three Tar Heels to play all 100 minutes. (The others were Wold and sophomore Julia Young.) “I say it's a family of girls and I really mean it – it really has been an outstanding journey, not just this year but the five years I've been here. I'm so honored and so proud that I will graduate from the University of North Carolina and I will always be a Tar Heel. It really is about the journey, and about making friends. To be able to say I'm a Tar Heel is something I'm so proud of.”
No. 4 Syracuse 3, No. 1 UNC 2, 2OT, Shootout
Scoring: UNC – Emma Bozek (Nina Notman), 15:58; SU – Emma Russell, 33:01; SU – Lieke Visser (Alyssa Manley), 47:23; UNC – Notman (Emily Wold), 64:40
Shots: UNC 16 (2/6/6/2), SU 17 (8/7/1/1)
Penalty corners: UNC 7 (2/3/1/1), SU 7 (2/4/0/1)
Saves: UNC 7 (Shannon Johnson, 95:56, 7 saves, 2 goals allowed; Team, 4:04, 0 saves, 0 goals allowed); SU 5 (Jess Jecko, 100:00, 2 goals allowed, 5 saves)
Records: UNC 19-4, Syracuse 18-5
