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No. 8 Duke Field Hockey Earns Seventh Straight Trip To NCAA Tournament
11/11/2008 12:00:00 AM | Field Hockey
DURHAM, NC. ? The No. 8 Duke field hockey team received its seventh consecutive and 10th overall bid to the Division I NCAA Field Hockey Championships, as the 16-team bracket was announced this evening by the committee.
The Blue Devils (14-5, 2-3) are slotted to face the No. 5 University of Connecticut (17-3) this Sat., Nov. 15 at 2 p.m. on the campus of the University of Maryland. If Duke can defeat the BIG EAST runner-up Huskies, it would then face the winner of the Maryland-Albany contest on Sun., Nov. 16 at 2 p.m.
Duke will be looking to snap its only two-game losing streak of the season after closing out the regular season with a 4-3 loss to Virginia and then falling to the Cavaliers just five days later by a score of 5-2 in the first round of the ACC Championships last Thursday. Duke has reached the Final Four in four of the last five seasons, and the national championship game in three of those.
“We're happy to be in the tournament, and ready to redeem ourselves after faltering in our last two games,” said head coach Beth Bozman, who embarks on her 14th trip to the NCAA Tournament. “We're ready to get back on track and we think this is going to be a very exciting tournament.”
The Blue Devils have not faced Connecticut since the 2005 season, when Duke defeated the Huskies in double overtime in the first round of NCAAs, en route to an eventual trip to the national championship game. The teams have only faced a total of two times in their history, with Duke holding the 2-0 advantage all-time.
UConn most recently fell to Syracuse, 1-0, in the finals of the BIG EAST Championship Sunday, moving them to 17-3 on the season and 5-1 in conference play.
A total of five ACC teams ? Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wake Forest ? were selected to the field. In 76 total appearances over the last 27 years in the tournament, the conference owns a combined 117-63 record while claiming 13 NCAA championships.
Duke received one of the tournament's eight at-large bids, after five conferences received automatic bids and three earned play-in selections. Teams receiving the automatic bids with conference tournament wins were the University at Albany (America East), Maryland (ACC), Syracuse (BIG EAST), Iowa (Big Ten), and James Madison (CAA). Play-in berths were awarded to American (Patriot), UMass-Amherst (Atlantic 10), and Princeton (Ivy).
“It's obvious that our bracket is tough, but it's the NCAA Tournament so no matter where you are, you are going to have to play good teams,” said junior captain Lauren Miller. “I think it's exciting because we haven't played UConn since I've been here and I think it will be a great game.”
The University of Louisville will host the semifinals and final of the tournament on Nov. 21 and 23 at Trager Stadium.
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