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Modified Mon, Nov 23, 2009 04:11 AM
Tar Heels take NCAA field hockey crown
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close xWINSTON-SALEM -- Senior captain Danielle Forword scored the winning goal on a penalty corner with 11.7 seconds on the clock Sunday to give North Carolina a 3-2 win over No. 1 Maryland and hand the Tar Heels their sixth NCAA field hockey championship.
UNC (20-2) won its second crown in the past three seasons.
Maryland (23-1) was the 2008 national champion.
"I'm just thrilled for the team," UNC coach Karen Shelton said. "I can't congratulate them enough for believing they could win the game. Perhaps another team or lesser student-athletes might have lost some hope, but they didn't. They were resilient, they stuck with it and were able to pull it through."
Although Maryland outshot UNC 8-1 in the first period, the game was well into the second half before either team scored.
In the 43rd minute of play, Nicole Muracco gave Maryland a 1-0 lead with her 31st goal of the season on a two-on-one breakaway.
Forword picked up her first goal of the game in the 61st minute, grabbing a ball that senior Melanie Brill sent into the circle and firing a shot past Maryland goalkeeper Alicia Grater for a 1-1 tie.
Less than two minutes later, the Terrapins regained the lead when Megan Frazer scored on a penalty corner rebound.
Shelton immediately called a timeout, with 7:49 remaining, and pulled Tar Heels goalkeeper Jackie Kintzer in favor of an additional field player.
The gamble paid off three minutes later when senior Illse Davids took a pass from junior Katelyn Falgowski and fired a reverse shot from the left-center of the circle past a charging Grater to tie the score at 2-2.
"In a national championship game you've got to risk," Shelton said. "We did it, and it paid off, and I'm delighted."
Kintzer immediately went back to the cage, and the game was headed toward overtime before Forword's goal in the closing seconds.
The goal, the career-high 17th of the season for the forward from East London, South Africa, was assisted by Falgowski and redshirt freshman Caitlin Van Sickle on UNC's seventh penalty corner of the day.
"Mel Brill on my left just kept repeating, 'I believe in you, I believe in you, I believe in you,' even when they [the Maryland defenders] were rushing out," Forword said.
"There's nothing like knowing that your teammates really need this and they do believe in you.
"I don't know what it was that came over me, but it went in. And I did it for everyone."
Maryland occupied the No. 1 spot in the national poll all season.
"Maryland had an outstanding season, and it may have been a bit of an injustice that we were able to steal the game," Shelton said. "They played so well and so hard the first half. We were very, very fortunate to still be in the game at halftime.
"As the period went on, our kids started to get a little bit looser. I think they started to play with a little more confidence and poise and a little bit more desperation."
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