North Carolina kept the ball on Wake Forest’s side for much of the first half. UNC notched five shots; Wake Forest, 0. UNC was playing beautiful field hockey — passing well, maintaining possession, defending — but they couldn’t nab a goal.
And it was the Demon Deacons who scored the first goal off its first shot of the game, early in the second half on a penalty corner.
Twelve minutes later, UNC launched into a controlled frenzy, upping the pressure on the Demon Deacon’s defense even more and finally hitting the net — twice — in a span of 33 seconds.
“I think it was like fire,” senior captain Samantha Travers said. “It was great, it really upped our competitiveness and we just went after it from there.”
The No. 1 Tar Heels (14-2, 4-2 ACC) scored three unanswered goals to defeat No. 11 Wake Forest (10-6, 3-3 ACC) 3-1 Saturday at Francis E. Henry Stadium in its last regular-season conference game of the year.
“We didn’t lose our composure. We stayed true to our game scenarios and our basic plan, which is we pass the ball, and we were connecting very well,” coach Karen Shelton said Saturday. “We just weren’t scoring goals. So to open it up and score three goals kind of quickly was just great.”
Senior Loren Shealy got the offense moving when she took a shot and then took a penalty corner, which resulted in a deflected shot from Nina Notman. Less than a minute later, UNC got another penalty corner, leading to Emma Bozek’s game-tying goal in the 53rd minute after deflecting Travers’ shot into the net.
Thirty-three seconds later, Shealy dove and tipped in a pass from junior Casey Di Nardo past the goalkeeper into the left side of the goal.
“We were a little frustrated after they got that first goal, and we kind of flipped a switch on,” Shealy said. “Our big thing is after one goal, you’ve got two minutes to really put some more pressure on them, and that’s when you’re most vulnerable as well, so we really wanted to get it down the field and get another goal or a corner or something, and we did.”
