Seven UNC coaches get new deals
North Carolina has announced multi-year deals for seven head coaches.
Women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell and women’s lacrosse coach Jenny Levy, received two-year extensions. Field hockey coach Karen Shelton, men’s lacrosse coach Joe Breschi, men’s tennis coach Sam Paul, men’s soccer coach Carlos Somoano and women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance received three-year deals — the first multi-year deals for any of them.
Each of the seven coaches has won at least one national championship at UNC. And even though some, like Dorrance and Shelton, have been coaching at UNC for over 35 years, this is the first multi-season deal they’ve received.
Field hockey: Whenever North Carolina (8-2, 2-1 ACC) and Syracuse (8-1, 2-1 ACC) meet in field hockey, the drama is always high. The Orange knocked the Tar Heels out of the NCAA tournament in each of the past two seasons, first in the Final Four in 2014, then in the title game last year. The Tar Heels, meanwhile, topped Syracuse in the ACC championship last season.
Though Friday night’s game between the two lacked the stakes of the past few years, it didn’t lack for excitement. No. 5 UNC scored in the second overtime to topple the No. 1 Orange 3-2 thanks to a rocket into the right corner from sophomore Malin Evert in the 90th minute.
On Sunday, the Tar Heels beat No. 2 Duke (8-1, 2-0 ACC), 3-2. Trailing 1-0, sophomore midfielder Evan van’t Hoog, who hails from Den Haag in the Netherlands, scored twice in a three-minute span about halfway through the second half to give UNC a lead it never relinquished.
The Tar Heels will play Duke again on Oct. 22 in the teams’ ACC match in Durham, as Sunday’s contest was a designated nonconference game. Next week, the Tar Heels also face Michigan (7-2, 2-1) at home in a rematch of the season opener where UNC lost 1-0 in the final seconds.
Men’s soccer: Following an upset loss to East Tennessee State (4-3) last week, North Carolina men’s soccer (7- 1, 3-0 ACC) beat William & Mary (5-3- 1, 0-1- 1) on Tuesday night.
UNC, which dropped to No. 9 from No. 2, handled the Tribe by a score of 4-1. For the second consecutive game, both the Hume twins — Walker and Tucker — scored goals for the Tar Heels, while junior forward Zach Wright notched his third goal of the season and assisted on freshman Jeremy Kelly’s first goal of the game in his first start of his freshman season.
Tucker Hume, who led UNC with 11 goals a season ago, led the team with four entering Friday night’s 5-0 win against Boston College (5-3, 1-2 ACC). But sophomore Nils Bruening hammered home four goals to overtake Hume for the team lead. Bruening came off the bench for the first time this season and scored the most goals in a game for a Tar Heel since 2002.
The forward played professionally in Germany last year. After sitting out a year, he’s been making his presence felt this season.
Women’s soccer: Needing to pull itself out of an offensive rut, the No. 20 North Carolina women’s soccer team (6-2-2, 1-1-1 ACC) managed to do just that with a 3-0 win over Virginia Tech (8-4, 0-3 ACC) on Thursday night. Though the freshman responsible for making UNC’s attack hum have struggled with inconsistency this season, they played well against the Hokies.
Freshman forward Bridgette Andrzejewski scored twice coming off the bench to give her four goals this season, while fellow rookie forward Zoe Redei assisted on UNC’s first goal courtesy of junior midfielder Annie Kingman.
UNC’s offense was held more in check on Sunday night in a 1-1 tie against No. 9 Clemson (8-2- 1, 2-0- 1 ACC). Kingman tallied UNC’s lone score of the day. Fifth-year senior keeper Lindsey Harris added six saves, including four in the first half.
Volleyball: Ranked 12th in the nation, North Carolina women’s volleyball team (10-2, 2-0 ACC) has played in five matches that have gone the full five sets. The Tar Heels have been winning in those high pressure situations, topping N.C. State (8-6, 1-1 ACC) and Boston College (5-7, 0-2 ACC) this weekend both by 3-2 margins to give them a 4-1 record in five-set matches this season.
Against the Wolfpack on Thursday night, the Tar Heels dropped two sets in a row after taking the first one by a score of 25-17. But a nine-point run in the fourth set helped UNC retake the momentum with a 25-14 set win. Freshman standout Julia Scoles had five kills in the fifth set to seal a 15-7 win for UNC.
The Tar Heels faced a much different challenge on Sunday visiting Boston College. UNC jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the Eagles came back. UNC faced two separate match points at 14-13 and 17-16 before finally closing out a 20-19 win.
This story was originally published September 26, 2016 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Seven UNC coaches get new deals."