Focused Tar Heels Ready For One More Game

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Before top-ranked UNC takes the field for today's NCAA field hockey championship game against No. 2 Maryland, the Tar Heels will pause for a few minutes for a ritual that's been with them all season:

With the coaches already out on the field and only the players still in the locker room, just before the goalkeepers head out to start warmups, the Tar Heels will draw together in a huddle, arms around each other. Someone will have turned the music off and the room will grow very quiet. It's a moment of calm before the storm, when the Tar Heels look around at their teammates and recommit themselves to the task at hand.

Everyone has a role on this team: For some it's scoring, for some it's defending, for some it's cheering and supporting, or carrying the water bottles and coats. Each has done that role well enough this season that UNC is undefeated at 22-0 and playing for the program's seventh national title, the first since 2009.

All fall the team has focused on mindfulness, and the pregame huddles provide an opportunity to re-center before taking the field. "In other years we'd be playing music in the locker room and we'd all go out whenever we were ready," UNC junior Marissa Creatore said. "This year has been different, and it's been great. We take that time to pull together and focus."

While in the huddle, one Tar Heel speaks to the team, offering a message to inspire her teammates. Ashley Hoffman, the team captain, and Creatore, the vice-captain, line up a teammate for each pregame. Sometimes it's someone coming off a particularly good game. Sometimes it's someone coming off a bad game, "and we're like 'do the speech, this will help!'" Hoffman says. "It's nice because it's not always the person who speaks up at practice, so it gives everyone a voice."

Each Tar Heel sketches out her speech ahead of time, and most then read it off a glowing iPhone screen, sometimes struggling to keep the hand holding it from shaking with emotion. "

"You try to give motivation to the team, start with a quote or something that touches everyone and brings everyone together, something that inspires or lights the fire," said junior Feline Guenther, who spoke before the game at Old Dominion and led with the team's motto for the year: With Each Other, For Each Other.

Creatore's turn came on Friday, before UNC beat Wake Forest 4-1 in the semifinal, and she led with a quote from a Louisville hometown hero, Muhammad Ali: "Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even."

No one in the Carolina huddle has finished a season anywhere other than the final four, yet no one has experienced a season that doesn't end in defeat. Sunday is another chance to end with a win, and it's the last chance for the team's six seniors.

"I love that our players do this," UNC coach Karen Shelton said. "It's entirely driven by them and shows great leadership. It's brought them closer and helped make them the tightly-knit team they are. They know they can count on each other and it's been that way all season."

When the team huddles today, everyone will turn toward the captain. It's Hoffman's turn to speak, and she'll be ready.

"I've been thinking about it for a while," she said Saturday after wrapping up her final practice as a Tar Heel. "I'm excited for the opportunity."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Marissa Creatore

Feline Guenther

Ashley Hoffman

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