CHAPEL HILL - Over the past two years, the field hockey team has improved enough to overcome three of the four highly-ranked teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference. North Carolina is the one exception, and the Tar Heels have kept it that way since 1981.
Wednesday night was no different.
Third-ranked UNC (14-3, 3-1 in the ACC) scored a pair of goals midway through the first half and never looked back in a 5-0 shutout of Duke at Navy Field. The 15th-ranked Blue Devils fell to 10-7 overall and 1-2 in the conference.
"UNC's a great team," Duke coach Liz Tchou said. "It's really disappointing in that you think you're going to win the game. There were pockets of time during the first half where we didn't take care of the ball, and that's really not our trait."
Unlike the two teams' meeting a month ago, when the Tar Heels took advantage of a few quick rushes, UNC kept the ball on Duke's side of the field throughout the first half on Wednesday.
Cindy Werley, the nation's leading scorer with 32 goals, opened the Tar Heels' attack just over 12 minutes into the game on a blast from the top of the circle that squeezed through traffic and just inside the right post of the Blue Devils' cage.
Three and a half minutes later, after three successive penalty corners, Abbi Keller ended a scramble in front of Duke's net by slipping a shot past goalie Sarah Doherty to give UNC a 2-0 lead. The Tar Heels continually pressured Duke's defense by controlling the passing lanes and maintaining possession of the ball.
"I think one thing about them is they have an incredible passing game," Doherty said. "They really seem to know where each of them is going to be."
After falling behind early, the Blue Devils appeared to finally gain their footing as the first half wore on. Duke earned two penalty corners around the 15-minute mark of the half, but the first one ended on an errant pass and Melissa Panasci's blast from out top was blocked on the second attempt.
Just as it appeared the Blue Devils would head to halftime only down by two, UNC put the game out of reach with goals at 3:51 and 1:16. Nancy Pelligreen tipped home a pass from Kate Barber for the first and Kristen McCann rifled home the second, giving the Tar Heels a 4-0 lead.
In the second half McCann sealed the final margin with her second goal of the game just under nine minutes in. Overall, the Tar Heels outshot Duke 26-5 and had 15 penalty corners to the Blue Devils' six.
"I think there's a little soul-searching that needs to be done as far as us figuring out we need to start out the first half hard," Tchou said. "We need to take care of the ball, and we need to really take it to the other team. Pockets of good play aren't enough against the really good teams."
Duke gets one more shot against a top-five team before the ACC tournament as it closes out the regular season on Sunday in Virginia against the second-ranked Cavaliers.
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