UConn midfielder Karlie Heistand moves the ball against Liberty University on October 15th. The Huskies won 7-2. (Tyler Benton/The Daily Campus)
Despite UConn’s 20-1 record and a dominant performance in the Big East, the Huskies were not given a top-four seed and had to hit the road for a chance to play in the Final Four.
After thrashing Boston College 5-1, the Huskies faced their storied rival Syracuse with a trip to the Final Four on the line. UConn took care of the Orange in double overtime, 4-3, behind superstar Charlotte Veitner’s late-game heroics.
With the win, UConn has moved on to the Final Four for the fourth straight season and the fourteenth time in program history.
They’ll meet No. 4 North Carolina (19-5) in the semifinal. It’s the Tarheels’ eighth consecutive appearance in the Final Four, and 21st appearance overall, more than any other school.
UNC finished ACC play 3-3 with two of their wins coming in overtime. UNC entered the ACC title game as the fifth-seed in the tournament; they met Virginia in the finals and bowed out 4-2 to the Commodores.
North Carolina earned a Final Four bid with two wins. The first was a 3-0 win over Stanford; the second was against second-seeded Maryland.
Senior Lauren Moyer leads the Tarheels in scoring with 22 goals and 47 points this season.
Junior Gab Major trails by 19 points. The forward has nine goals and 10 assists.
The Tarheels have shared time goalkeeper time between Shannon Johnson (10-0) and Alex Halpin (9-5). It was Johnson who earned shut out victories in the first two NCAA Tournament matchups.
North Carolina leads the all-time series with UConn, 8-3, dating back to 1980.
There is some good news, however.
The Huskies are 4-0 against ACC opponents this season. UConn beat Virginia once, Syracuse once and Boston College twice.
UConn leads the country in five different categories. This list includes goals per game (5.00), scoring average (4.90), winning percentage (.957), points per game (13.91) and scoring margin (.3.71).
All the games this weekend are being played at Old Dominion, where coincidentally, the Huskies are 6-0 in their last six games. This includes the 2013 NCAA championship and the 2015 Big East tournament title.
If the Huskies win, they’ll face the winner of Delaware-Princeton in the national championship game,
Connor Donahue is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at connor.f.donahue@uconn.edu. He tweets @conn_donahue.
