This weekend, the Cal field hockey team (4-5, 1-2 NorPac) will travel to North Carolina to compete in two of the toughest games of the season.
The team, coming off a split of two games against NorPac rival Pacific, will first travel to Durham to face the No. 16 Duke Blue Devils (8-2, 1-0 ACC) on Friday at 3 p.m. This will be followed by a Sunday matchup against the No. 3 Tar Heels of the University of North Carolina. This North Carolina excursion is the Bears’ second of three East Coast trips for the season.
“It’s a good opportunity to make a statement and measure ourselves up against the best,” said coach Shellie Onstead. “We continue to make adjustments if we don’t have everyone 100 percent, and it may not show in the scoreline, but we are getting better every day.”
The Blue Devils are riding high, coming off a three-game winning streak that included a 5-4 shootout win over rivals North Carolina (8-1, 1-1 ACC). While there has been a lot of talk over the great play of Cal goalkeeper Courtney Hendrickson, Duke enjoys similarly exceptional play from their net-minder, Lauren Blazing.
The redshirt sophomore received last week’s ACC Player of the Week award for her performance against the then-No.1 Tar Heels. She recorded 22 saves as the Blue Devils beat their rivals for the first time since 2006, handing North Carolina its first regular-season ACC loss in three years. She made a critical stop in the shootout that decided the game and then went on to record four saves in Duke’s most recent win, by a score of 3-1, against Longwood University, the leader of the NorPac East Division.
After facing Duke, the Bears will play at Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels will be looking to rebound after their performance against Duke and likely will fancy their chances against a Cal side carrying some injuries in important parts of the field. North Carolina includes 10 new freshmen this season, but the squad will hope to overcome its relative inexperience to continue its winning pattern. The Tar Heels have played in the NCAA National Championship in each of the last four years, winning only once.
The game, starting at 10 a.m., will be an even tougher assignment than Duke for the Bears. The Tar Heels boast a high-scoring and devastating attack led by sophomore forward Casey Di Nardo and junior forward Charlotte Craddock, the leading scorer from last season.
“I know both of those programs well, and they play a quality game, like a lot of our opponents,” Onstead said. “UNC has a pretty powerful attack, and Duke is just a well-structured team. We are going to have to play a good game against both of them.”
Hendrickson has received plenty of positive reviews as she carries on in the best form of her collegiate career, and she will need to turn in another solid performance to repel the attackers of the two North Carolina sides. In their most recent game, against Pacific, Cal was missing three key starters from its lineup, but the team hopes to have these players back to add more of a spine as well as keep down the minutes of all the players to avoid fatigue.
Still, there is no denying that the injuries, in conjunction with the quality of the Bears’ opponents, make the Bears definite underdogs and likely to see their record drop to 4-7. At the same time, there is plenty of positive spirit within the squad, and Onstead and her charges will nonetheless relish the opportunity to see how they match up against two of the best teams in the nation.
Glenn Borok covers field hockey. Contact him at [email protected].