NCAA Field Hockey Tournament Field Down to Four
NCAA Field Hockey Quarterfinals:
In 1981, Diane Wright coached her Connecticut Huskies to their first ever Field Hockey tournament championship with a 4-1 victory over the University of Massachusetts. It marked the first of four total in program history for the Huskies, who have earned their way into the 2016 Field Hockey Final Four.
Connecticut comes into the semifinals with one loss on their record, which came at the hands of Maryland Terrapins towards the end of the season. North Carolina, one of the hottest teams coming into the tournament took down the Terps to earn a trip to the Final Four and a match against the Huskies.
Both teams have storied programs in field hockey; Connecticut earned back-to-back national championships in 2013-14 with wins over Duke and Syracuse, respectively. While North Carolina won championships in 2007 and 2009, however the Tar Heels have played in four of the last six finals losing all four appearances.
Charlotte Veitner is 3rd in the nation in Goals per game with 1.17 and her Huskies are the nations best scoring team with 4.90 a game. Fellow teammate Amanda Collins is also on the nations top 10 scoring list with 23 goals this season. Senior Lauren Moyer who scored 24 goals this season and is looking to redeem that National Championship loss from a year ago leads North Carolina into the semis against UConn. In the other semifinal two teams no one expected to be there join some of the nations top teams. Delaware suffered only two losses all season, one in overtime to Old Dominion and the other to their semifinal opponent Princeton, 4-2. Greta Nauck leads the nation in goals per game with 1.35 and scored the game winning goal to send the Blue Hens past #1 Duke in overtime.
Nauck started the comeback down 2-0; she brought her team within one with her 30th goal on the season. In overtime she would score three minutes in on the 7v7 action. Delaware advances to final four for the first time since 1982 and earned it first win over a #1 ranked team in program history. Princeton is no stranger to the national spotlight; in 2012 the team claimed its lone national championship with a victory 3-2 victory over North Carolina. This years team finished the regular season 10-7 and earned an at-large bid from the committee. Some people believed other teams such as Boston University or Northwestern deserved that bid but the Tigers have proven themselves.
In the first round Princeton knocked off #4 seed Penn State with a thrilling 2-1 victory when Aurelia Meijer netted a goal for the Tigers with less than five minutes remaining. A few days later, Sophia Tornetta sent Princeton into the semifinals with a buzzer-beating goal for her ninth of the season.
Princeton and Delaware met earlier this season with the Tigers defeating the Blue Hens 4-2 in Princeton, NJ. Delaware is looking to avoid another second half let down in this matchup and trying to make it to the programs first ever national championship appearance.
SEMIFINALS: November 18, 2016 Delaware vs. Princeton North Carolina vs. Connecticut
FINALS: November 20, 2016
