Field hockey won't shed tears

For a team coming into the year with such high expectations, you could say that the North Carolina field hockey team had a disappointing season.

You could say it, but the players would tell you just how wrong you were.

Entering the season with National Championship aspirations, the Tar Heels ended the season ranked No. 8, losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row, this time to No. 6 Penn State.

Disappointing, right?

But the Tar Heels were one of the youngest teams in the loaded ACC, sporting only three seniors on a squad that started four freshmen at crucial positions, including goalkeeper, for most of the season.

"I would never ever look back at this season and say there's a disappointment," said senior co-captain Brooke Miller, who was named second team All-America by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association on Monday. "Looking back on my senior year, I don't know if I would've wanted it any other way. Wins, losses, good or bad, it just helped this team grow."

The Tar Heels won their first six games of the season, but finished the regular season 6-7, eventually ending the year with a 13-9 record. Six of the team's losses were by one goal, however, and two of those were in overtime. If there was a disappointment to be had from the season, Coach Karen Shelton said that was it.

"We could have won some of those close games, so you look back and you wish," Shelton said. "There's the saying - if I coulda, woulda, shoulda."

Freshman goalkeeper Brianna O'Donnell, who notched eight shutouts this season, summed it up best: "We felt like our break would come, you know, and it never really did."

Though the team loses the leadership of Miller and fellow seniors Karen Mann and Ashley Judge, many talented underclassmen along with the return of redshirt seniors like Laree Beans and Rachel Dawson - who played for the U.S. National Team this season - should help propel next year's team farther into the postseason.

"With all of the talent that we have, last year we were so young, and now all those players are older and experienced," junior Alli Tanner said. "Once again we're going for a National Championship, and that starts right after Thanksgiving."

O'Donnell said the rest of the team feels the same way.

"I was just at the Final Four this weekend watching it," she said. "Illse (Davids) and I, we were both there, and we decided that we aren't going to settle for less than that next year. It's hard to go and watch that; the level of hockey there was really great - our team didn't deserve to be there the way we played in the end."

But O'Donnell said next year will be different.

"We're not going to let it slip through our fingers like we did this year."

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.