GREENSBORO, N.C. (theACC.com) – North Carolina is favored to claim its sixth consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference field hockey title in a vote of the league’s seven head coaches.
Led by four-time ACC Player Offensive Player of the Year Erin Matson, the Tar Heels received five first-place votes and placed atop this year’s ACC preseason poll with 47 total points. Syracuse picked up the remaining two first-place votes and placed second in the overall balloting with 41 points, followed by Boston College (27) and Virginia (24).
Louisville, which placed first atop the 2021 ACC regular-season standings, placed fifth with 23 points, while Duke and Wake Forest tied for sixth with 17 points each.
The ACC is coming off a 2021 season in which four league teams earned bids to the NCAA Field Hockey Championship, marking the 27th consecutive year in which the ACC landed multiple teams in the postseason field. It marked the eighth time in the last nine seasons that at least four conference teams earned NCAA bids.
Six ACC teams finished last season ranked among the top 25 of the NFHCA rankings, and all seven conference teams were ranked at some point during the 2021 campaign.
The 2022 NFHCA Division I preseason national rankings are scheduled to be announced on Tuesday.
The ACC leads all conferences with 21 NCAA field hockey titles. The conference has placed at least one team in the national championship game in 29 of the past 33 seasons, including three consecutive recent NCAA titles by North Carolina (2018-2020).
Syracuse led all schools with four players selected by the coaches to the 2022 Preseason All-ACC Field Hockey team, and North Carolina placed two players on the 11-member squad. Each of the ACC’s seven field hockey teams had at least one player selected.
North Carolina’s Matson, Louisville’s Aimee Plumb, Syracuse’s Quirine Comans and Wake Forest’s Meike Lanckohr were voted to this season’s preseason All-ACC team after earning 2021 All-ACC first-team honors. Three other players selected 2022 preseason All-ACC – North Carolina’s Meredith Sholder and Syracuse’s Eefke van den Nieuwenhof and Charlotte de Vries – earned second-team All-ACC in 2021.
ACC teams open regular-season play Friday with a packed non-conference slate that includes four ACC-Big Ten matchups – Duke at Rutgers, North Carolina versus Michigan at Wake Forest’s Kentner Stadium, Iowa at Wake Forest, and Virginia at Penn State.
A total of 14 games involving ACC teams are scheduled over the weekend, including the first two ACC Network telecasts of the season on Sunday – Michigan at Wake Forest at 1:30 p.m., followed by North Carolina versus Iowa at 4 p.m.
The first conference games are set for Friday, Sept. 16. Duke is slated to host this year’s ACC Championship on Nov. 1-2 and 4 at Williams Field at Jack Katz Stadium.
2022 ACC Field Hockey Predicted Order of Finish
1. North Carolina (5) - 47
2. Syracuse (2) - 41
3. Boston College - 27
4. Virginia - 24
5. Louisville - 23
t-6. Duke - 17
t-6. Wake Forest -17
(First-place votes)
2022 Preseason All-ACC Field Hockey Team
Margo Carlin, F, Sr., Boston College
Hannah Miller, F, Sr., Duke
Aimee Plumb, F, Jr., Louisville
Erin Matson, F, Sr., North Carolina
Meredith Sholder, M, Sr., North Carolina
Brooke Borzymowski, GK, So., Syracuse
Quirine Comans, F, Gr., Syracuse
Charlotte de Vries, F, Sr., Syracuse
Eefke van den Nieuwenhof, B, Jr., Syracuse
Adele Iacobucci, M, Sr., Virginia
Meike Lanckohr, M, Sr., Wake Forest