Nov. 14, 2009

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Four Atlantic Coast Conference field hockey teams—Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wake Forest—advanced to the second round of the NCAA Championship with wins this afternoon. Half of the eight teams that remain from the overall field of 16 hail from the ACC.

Top-ranked Maryland (National Field Hockey Coaches Association) earned the top-overall seed in the tournament and defeated American, 6-1, at its Field Hockey & Lacrosse Complex in College Park, Md. The Terrapins (21-0) advance to the second round of action and will play 10th-ranked Drexel (19-3) tomorrow. Drexel upset fifth-ranked Connecticut, 3-2, earlier today.

Winston-Salem, N.C. featured a pair ACC teams competing in two first-round games today as third-ranked North Carolina (17-2) beat 15th-ranked Ohio State by a 4-1 count at Kentner Stadium on the campus of Wake Forest University. Later, first and second-round host Wake Forest (13-6) shutout 13th-ranked Indiana, 2-0. The Tar Heels and the seventh-ranked Demon Deacons will face off in Sunday’s second-round action.

Tomorrow’s game will be the third match-up between the two in-state foes, with North Carolina taking both meetings earlier this season. The Tar Heels beat Wake Forest in a non-conference game, 4-1, at Francis E. Henry Stadium in Chapel Hill on September 4 in the third game of the season for both teams. In the rematch in Winston-Salem on October 3, North Carolina upended the Deacons, 3-0, in an ACC game.

Virginia was the fourth team to advance to the second round with a 3-0 shutout of Richmond at Turf Field in Charlottesville, Va. The Cavaliers will host sixth-ranked Michigan State (18-3), who defeated Delaware, 7-0, this afternoon. Earlier this season, Virginia defeated Michigan State, 3-0, at home on September 20, and fourth-year head coach Michele Madison will be looking for her second win of 2009 against the team she coached from 1993-2005.

Ninth-ranked Boston College (13-7) was defeated by eighth-ranked Syracuse, 6-2, in Princeton, N.J. in the league’s only loss of the day.

The second round of the NCAA Championship has featured at least three teams from the ACC in every season since 1996, and the league will be looking for at least two of its teams to clinch a semifinal-round berth for the seventh consecutive season.

ACC teams have claimed 14 NCAA field hockey championships since 1983, including the last seven in a row, and have competed in every championship game since 1999. Wake Forest (2002-04), Maryland (2005-06, 08), and North Carolina (2007) have combined to win the last seven NCAA field hockey championships.

More ACC field hockey information can be found on theACC.com or by following the ACC’s Twitter account, @theACCsport.