CHAPEL HILL - For the past 15 years, Duke-UNC field hockey games have meant one thing: Tar Heel wins.
But as the intra-state rivals entered Wednesday night's contest, the Blue Devils hoped to change that tradition. After all, Duke came in ranked seventh in the country, winners of four straight, including an upset of then-No. 2 Maryland. Defending national champ North Carolina, currently ranked No. 2, had had its 29-game winning streak halted on Sunday in a 4-3 double overtime loss to Old Dominion.
Although this was not the night that the Blue Devils beat UNC for the first time in 34 tries, there were many positive signs for Duke in the 5-2 defeat that indicated how far the Blue Devils have come.
Trailing 2-1, Duke burst out of the blocks in the second half with a lot of intensity, and was rewarded when Mandy Schott scored off a corner to tie the game. The Blue Devils' celebration was short-lived, however, as the Tar Heels notched two goals in less than two minutes by Nancy Pelligreen and Susannah Schott to take a 4-2 advantage with just over 26 minutes remaining.
After calling a timeout, Duke couldn't capitalize on a scoring chance, and North Carolina regained momentum with a corner, which led to a penalty stroke and goal. Suddenly trailing 5-2, the Blue Devils kept the pressure on for the final 25 minutes, but couldn't put the ball in the net.
Although Duke coach Liz Tchou was happy with her team's overall performance, she was concerned with its lack of intensity in the latter stages of both halves, especially after falling behind by three goals.
"That's where we need to work on, those last 10 minutes [of the half]," Tchou said. "I want them to fight every second. I'm hard in that way, in that I want them to go all out every second, even if we're down 5-2 in the last three minutes."
At the start of the game, the Blue Devils showed no signs of being intimidated by history, as they put pressure on UNC right away. Five minutes in, Jodie Taylor tipped in the ball on a corner for a 1-0 Duke lead. The Tar Heels began to push back, however. Kate Berber scored on a breakaway in the 24th minute, and Schott scored her first goal of the game on a corner in the 29th minute.
Duke may have lost to North Carolina once again, but the players felt their attitude was different for this game.
"This is really the first time that I've felt playing against Carolina... that we could beat them," senior midfielder Lynn Schoenherr said. "At this level of play, it's not so much stick skills, every player has the stick skills, but it's more mental. I think this is the first year as a team we're together mentally."
Now it's up to the Blue Devils to bounce back from the defeat and continue to improve.
"We certainly don't feel great about a loss," freshman forward Emily Ford said. "We hope to come out with a win; we expect to come out with a win every game. But more importantly we're just worried about how we play, and this game shows that we have a lot to work on but we've come a long way as well. We played with them the whole time, and the next game can only get better."
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