UNC field hockey beats two ranked opponents

North Carolina’s field hockey team is playing like it doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

In its two games this weekend against Duke on Friday and Stanford on Sunday, top-ranked UNC established a four-goal lead in the first half — but let up in the second.

Still, the strong first halves were enough. The Tar Heels defeated No. 19 Duke 7-3 in Durham and returned to Chapel Hill to handle No. 11 Stanford 6-2.

“Our mentality is to win both halves, but we tied the second halves of both games,” said sophomore Loren Shealy, who scored a goal in each contest. “That’s something we’ll work on this week.”

Coach Karen Shelton said she’d like to see more consistently aggressive play from her squad, but she couldn’t argue with the results.

“I think human nature is when you have a four-goal lead, you don’t play with the same level of intensity,” she said. “Same with the Duke game … With a lead, it’s hard to play like it’s 0-0.”

But if anything could get the Tar Heels fired up, it was suddenly being behind 1-0 to Stanford in the opening minutes.

The Cardinal scored on a penalty corner less than nine minutes into the game when a shot deflected off UNC midfielder Abby Frey’s stick.

UNC took it personally. From then until the halftime whistle, the Tar Heels put pressure on Stanford attackers and forced turnovers, scarcely letting the Cardinal get the ball past midfield.

UNC took a 5-1 lead into the locker room, even though attacking threat Charlotte Craddock was kept quiet by Stanford’s defense. Against Duke, Craddock recorded a hat trick.

“We’re not just a two-man team,” Shelton said. “(Kelsey Kolojejchick) and Charlotte are two of the best in the nation, but we’ve got a lot of weapons, a lot of versatility.”

Four different players scored for UNC in the first half, including Katie Ardrey, who recorded her first goal of the season. The Tar Heels generally chose to attack from the left side, taking advantage of their skill with backhanded shots while the Stanford defense was occupied with Craddock on the right.

“Today it was good for us — we got scored on early, we didn’t give up,” Kolojejchick said. “We came out more aggressive after that first goal.”

But Stanford kept fighting. The Cardinal held possession better in the second half and halted UNC forays into the attacking circle more often.

Shelton was pleased with her team’s play against Duke as well, even though UNC allowed more goals against them than it had against any other team this season.

“Out of this weekend’s five goals, three were own goals,” Shelton said. “They were off of our own sticks. Today, the first one was off of Abby Frey, and against Duke, we had two deflections that we deflected into our own goal. We’ve got to stop doing that.

“But other than that, offensively, it’s starting to look real good.”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.