CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The Longwood University field hockey team dropped a 9-0 decision against No. 2 North Carolina (13-2) of the Atlantic Coast Conference on Wednesday evening in Chapel Hill, N.C. Senior Stacey de Grandhomme/Cape Town, South Africa paced the Lancers with four shots in the outing. Longwood (6-11) will return to action on Friday, November 1 when the squad travels to Northern Pacific Field Hockey Conference (NorPac) opponent Appalachian State University for a 6:30 p.m. match.

"UNC is a very good team that is highly ranked," said head coach Iain Byers. "They finished very well today. We competed well for the first 20 minutes and we saw some good things from our squad, but after the timeout, we fell away a little bit. We stopped going back to the things that made us good. They really turned on the switch, and when you make mistakes against a team like UNC, they punish you. That's a tough lesson for us.

"We have two conference games left to end the year and we're going to finish on a high. We're going to take these lessons learned and push on."

The teams played evenly matched in the early part of the game, with just one shot in the first 12 minutes of play. UNC registered the first attempt of the night, but senior goalkeeper Kaye Goulding/Tickhill, England, who totaled 11 saves, came out of the cage to block the shot that got just barely off the stick of Lauren Moyer. Longwood quickly retaliated and came very close to taking a lead, as sophomore Jennifer Burris/Virginia Beach tipped a pass from de Grandhomme, but Sassi Ammer made a good save for the opposition. de Grandhomme collected the rebound on the play and fired a backhand shot that was batted away, leading to three-straight corners for Longwood. de Grandhomme took the shot on each corner play, but had one blocked and one saved before scooping her final attempt high. The Tarheels took a 1-0 lead with just over eight minutes remaining in the first, converting on a direct corner opportunity, as Emily Wold and Janne Grove set up the shot by teammate Nina Notman. The home squad would maintain the momentum for the rest of the half, adding a pair of goals in the final three minutes to take a 3-0 lead into the break.

Coming out of halftime, the Tarheels were able to find the back of the cage on four more occasions before allowing the Lancers' only shot of the period. Casey DiNardo scored back-to-back goals for UNC, including one on a rebound following a good defensive save by senior Nicole Segala/WIlliamsburg, giving North Carolina a 5-0 advantage. The squad followed with a penalty corner goal and a penalty stroke goal to pull ahead 7-0 with just over 14 minutes still to play. Burris put the Lancers' lone attempt of the half on target, but it was stopped by goalkeeper Shannon Johnson at 61:29. The Tarheels notched the final two goals of the evening in the last five minutes of play to secure the 9-0 decision.