Lack of Preparation Disables UNC in OT

The Tar Heels are 2-2 in overtime this year and 6-9 in the past four years.

"It's not easy to play seven-a-side for an extra 30 minutes," said UNC coach Karen Shelton. "I know, I've done it."

In field hockey, overtime is a lot like soccer. They play two 15-minute sudden-death periods with only seven players, followed by a penalty stroke shootout where the goalie and player face each other one-on-one.

"I do keep my best players in there, though," Shelton said. "That's my philosophy as a coach, keep the best kids in there and let them win or lose."

This weekend the Tar Heels played two double overtime games, beating Duke 5-4 on Saturday and losing to Kent State 2-1 on Sunday.

"We haven't (played in overtime) for a while and we haven't practiced it for a while, so I think yesterday helped today," Shelton said. "Compared to (Saturday), the overtime today was so much better."

Even though Shelton and the team said they played better in overtime Sunday, they lost the game on penalty strokes.

But this is not surprising -- UNC is 3-7 all time in games that go to penalty strokes.

"Usually when you play the seven-a-side with two periods like that, one team breaks down because of fitness, so it very rarely goes to penalty strokes, so I don't spend a great deal of time at practice on that," Shelton said. "I think it's lack of preparation on my part, so I'll accept responsibility for that."

But Shelton said she does expect her players to practice penalty strokes on their own.

"Sometimes after practice, the five or maybe six or seven people will just take strokes for 10 minutes just to practice putting it in your spot, but we don't structure extra time during practice because not everyone has a stroke," said Alison Stewart, who got her second career goal in the shootout Sunday.

Rather than schedule practice time to work on strokes, coaches will call strokes during intersquad scrimmages.

"Usually in practice, if the call would be that it would be a stroke, Karen or (Associate Head Coach) Nick (Conway) or (Assistant Coach) Jana (Withrow) will say take the stroke, just to be on the spot and do it really quickly, but that's about it," co-captain Meredith Keller said. "Occasionally we'll have time for everyone to take strokes, but it's hard because goalies hate taking them. No one's going to be like, 'Let's do strokes.'"

Shelton said she doesn't like the penalty strokes either, but thinks the seven-a-side, sudden-death overtime is one of the best features of field hockey.

"I like the overtime. I think it's an exciting way to break a tie. I love the overtime period. There's a lot of open space and every possession matters. Everyone's on the edge of their seat. As a coach, I think it's an exciting format and a great way to break a tie."

The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu.