The ACC Tournament rolls on in Charlotte at American Legion Memorial Stadium, where Friday brings the semifinal round after a full day of quarterfinals on Wednesday.
Syracuse got out to a lead and held on impressively against the hard charge of a desperate Virginia team in their opening matchup, and now move on to face the nation’s top-ranked team and No. 1 seed in this tournament in the North Carolina Tar Heels.
It’s the first semifinal of the day, with opening draw set for 5 PM on the ACC Network.
Season so far
North Carolina is 14-1 this season and 10-0 in ACC play, with their only loss coming on March 25 against Northwestern, 17-16 in overtime.
They’ve mostly dominated. Other than the Wildcats, the only other teams to even come within five goals of UNC in the final score are ‘Cuse, Clemson and Duke on Wednesday in a 15-11 quarterfinal game.
In their regular season meeting on February 13, the Orange kept it relatively close. The game was tied at eight early in the fourth quarter before the Heels scored five of the final six goals to take a 13-9 win in the Dome. That game was over two months ago, in the very early stages of the season. A lot has changed since then, so I’m not sure how much can actually be gleaned from that when thinking about today’s matchup.
Scouting North Carolina
This one is pretty simple. I think most people would agree that the Tar Heels are the best team in the country. The overall quality and incredible depth of their talent is absolutely unmatched. Their offensive athleticism and skills are off the charts, and their man-to-man defense is almost always in lockdown mode. They’re at or near the top of the country in most statistical categories.
They have the No. 1 scoring offense in the country by a decent margin at 18.86 goals per game, as well as the No. 4 ranked scoring defense at 7.14 goals-against per game.
As you would expect, they more or less do everything well. They shoot the ball at a ridiculously high rate, both from the field (50.4 percent) and on free-positions (56.3).
They have a strong draw unit (59.4 win percent), they hold onto the ball (11.4 turnovers per game), and they successfully clear the ball almost every single time, with only eight failed clears all season (96.9 percent).
Yes, it’s safe to say they’re pretty tough.
Names to Know
The whole “off the charts” talent thing begins, of course, with Chloe Humphrey, the nation’s best and most productive player. If you’re unfamiliar with her numbers, she’s scored an almost-unimaginable 83 goals and 118 points in 15 games so far this season. That’s an average of 5.53 goals and 7.87 points per game, both easily tops in the country.
In the regular season, the Orange zone amazingly held her to a hat trick and five points, the only person in the sport for whom you’d classify that an underwhelming day.
In support of Chloe is an offense rounded out by nothing but All-American after All-American. Addison Pattillo (42G, 8A), Darcy Felter (30G, 14), Eliza Osburn (26G, 16A), Caroline Godine (13G, 21A), Kate Levy (21G, 8A) and Kiley Mottice (21G, 3A) make up that group, and they are very difficult to stay in front of thanks to their immense speed, skill and athleticism. The ‘Cuse zone will need to be on their toes for all the quick dodging, ball movement and off-ball cutting coming their way in this one.
Sarah Gresham (72DC) and Kaleigh Harden (69DC) lead the Tar Heels Top-20 draw unit that helps fuel their firestarting offense.
Their defense is disruptive and plays a man-to-man that is very difficult to beat. A lot of times against man, ‘Cuse tends to go iso and try to win individual matchups in space, but that’s a tall task against UNC. I think we’re going to need to see less one-on-one with lots of standing around and more constant movement of both the ball and the feet to try to get around the Heels and get looks at cage.
A pair of graduate students in Sam Forrest and Brooklyn Walker-Welch are the standouts for the stingy Heels defense.
Late in the season, UNC has fallen into an interesting, two-goalie system that they currently use. Betty Nelson has been the starter all season, but in recent weeks she’s turned into the first-half goalie while Lexi Zenk comes in post-halftime to play the closer role as the second-half goalie.
It’s an unusual system for such an overall strong team to be relying on multiple players at such a crucial position, but it hasn’t slowed them down one bit.
Nelson has started every game and has 57 saves with a 7.79 goals-against average and a 40.4 save percentage. Zenk’s numbers are even better as she’s made 25 saves in six appearances with a 6.96 GAA and a 54.3 save percentage.
