Category: Field Hockey

Here are ALL the former North Carolina Tar Heels participating in the Summer Olympics

The 2024 Paris Olympics are finally here. How many former UNC athletes are competing?

It’s late July. You’re waiting for the start of college football season – rightfully so – and playing EA Sports College Football 25 increases your excitement for the real thing.

This summer, while you’re waiting, why not check out the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris?

I’m not talking about traveling to France, unless you’re planning a vacation, but instead watching every sport you could imagine on television. We’re talking badminton, fencing, soccer, wrestling, basketball, plus several more.

The Olympics, if you ask me, are a great way to pass the time as summer moves on. It also gives you a great chance to watch some of your favorite athletes, particularly those who aren’t in major sports leagues.

Speaking of favorite athletes, the North Carolina Tar Heels will be well-represented in this year’s Summer Olympics. 13 former UNC athletes will participate in eight different sports – Katie Bowen (New Zealand, women’s soccer), Crystal Dunn and Emily Fox (USA, women’s soccer); Rinky Hijikata (Australia, men’s tennis), Patrick Hussey (Canada, men’s swimming), Martin Kartavi, Adam Maraana (Israel, men’s swimming), Ashley Hoffman, Meredith Sholder and Cassie Sumfest (USA, women’s field hockey), Ethan Ramos (Puerto Rico, freestyle wrestling), Kristen Siermachesky (Canada, women’s rowing) and Aranza Vasquez (women’s diving).

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If you want to know exactly when you can watch Tar Heel representatives on TV, click here for the schedule.

Wouldn’t it be something if, when the Olympics are complete, several athletes who donned Carolina Blue are medal winners?

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UNC highlights ACC dominance across the entire 2023-2024 college sports season

If you include all athletic programs, the ACC is the best conference in college sports.

It seems like whatever sport you talk about last year, the North Carolina Tar Heels enjoyed plenty of sustained success.

UNC’s lone national championship last season came from the field hockey team, which came back to beat Northwestern in a shootout, for its NCAA-leading 11th national title. Women’s tennis, men’s track and field, fencing and men’s golf also won ACC titles – in addition to field hockey.

North Carolina returned to men’s basketball glory during the 2023-2024 campaign, winning its first ACC Regular Season Title since 2018 and making the NCAA Tournament after a year’s absence. Most recently, the Diamond Heels won the ACC Regular Season Championship and made the College World Series.

UNC made its athletic presence felt in the ACC once again, but it wasn’t the conference’s only school to dominate in athletics last season.

To get an idea of the ACC’s dominance, just take a look at this graphic below:

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ACC is quietly one of the top conferences in women’s basketball, thanks in particular to NC State and Virginia Tech. For people saying the ACC had a “down” year in men’s basketball, five schools – North Carolina, Duke, Clemson, NC State and Virginia all made the NCAA Tournament, all but Virginia won a game and the Wolfpack enjoyed a run to the Final Four.

Every ACC football program but Virginia, Pitt and Wake Forest made a bowl game last year. Florida State was the most successful – despite entering bowl season a perfect 13-0, it didn’t make the College Football Playoff.

With the College Football Playoff being expanded to 12 teams this coming fall, will multiple ACC teams make it?

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Ryleigh Heck captures well-deserved National Player of the Year honor

UNC Field Hockey sophomore Ryleigh Heck, who scored the winning shootout goal in the 2023 National Championship, is also Player of the Year.

If it weren’t for sophomore Ryleigh Heck, there’s a strong chance the UNC Field Hockey team wouldn’t be celebrating its 11th National Championship.

With the Tar Heels and Northwestern Wildcats failing to break a 1-1 tie in overtime, a shootout ensued. Carolina took a one-goal lead in the shootout, only for Northwestern to score two straight and grab that lead right back.

UNC tied the shootout at two on its next attempt, which then set up the visiting Wildcats for a sudden death conversion attempt. Tar Heels goalie Maddie Kahn saved Northwestern’s attempt, which then gave Heck a chance to win it all.

Heck did exactly that, drawing Wildcats goalie Annabelle Skubitz out of net. Heck spun around, put the ball on her stick, then blasted it into the goal and sent Chapel Hill into pandamonium.

As a result of her National Championship performance, which was just a microcosm of her successful Year Two as a collegiate field hockey player, Heck was tabbed the National Field Hockey Coaches Association’s National Player of the Year.

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Heck ended her sophomore season with 13 goals, second-most on the Tar Heels behind freshman Charly Bruder, who started the title game scoring with a 33rd-minute tally. Heck and Bruder were the lone Tar Heels with double-digit goals, as Paityn Wirth was the next closest with seven goals.

With Heck expected to come back next year, barring a transfer, UNC should be a favorite to repeat and capture its 12th Natty.

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