Post-expansion ACC offers field hockey no breaks

The ACC has long been regarded as arguably the premier field hockey conference in the nation. Each of the league's six members is either ranked or receiving votes this season, and overall the programs account for 16 of the sport's 30 total national championships, including the past nine.

And the conference is only going to get stronger.

This week, Big East members Pittsburgh and Syracuse were accepted into a new-look ACC. Though the Panthers don't feature a field hockey program, the Orange is currently ranked No. 5 in the country, adding a high-caliber program to an already power-packed ACC.

"Syracuse is a great program," Terrapins field hockey coach Missy Meharg said. "I'd be honored to play them and have them be part of the league."

The No. 3 Terps (7-1, 1-0 ACC) will face Wake Forest (1-6, 0-2) tomorrow in their second of five challenging regular-season conference games. The Terps already defeated No. 6 Boston College in their ACC opener last Friday, and they face No. 2 North Carolina and No. 9 Duke in coming weeks.

With an already difficult conference slate, adding a high-profile program like Syracuse (5-2) won't make the ACC any less difficult to navigate.

"I'm always about the toughest and most high-performing schedule," Meharg said. "Having better teams is great. The biggest thing for [field] hockey, not being a national sport, is that those of us who are in such a dominant, high-performance, high-intensity conference … it makes it more exciting."

Junior midfielder Nikki Fernandez, who transferred to College Park after spending her first two seasons at Providence, a Big East school, said the ACC will only benefit from having Syracuse in the conference. While it will add another level of competition to the conference slate, it could also extend the recruiting reach of ACC teams immensely.

"For [field hockey] players that are looking to go to any school from high school, they're going to be looking at the ACC," Fernandez said. "That is going to be the conference to go to for elite-level hockey. There's going to be no competition with any other conferences when it comes to the ACC."

With Syracuse already on its way in and the possible addition of two more programs in the conference's future, the ACC is prepared to secure itself as the nation's elite field hockey conference for the long term. But as much as it helps the conference, Meharg said having more preeminent programs will have a positive impact on the Terps as well.

"I think that it's a big reason why so many of the top players choose to play here," Meharg said. "Not only do we play the top, but we're also in such a great region and so many fans come. Our numbers and our fan base have been No. 1 for quite some time now. We do a very good job of marketing."

But before they can worry about the addition of a new team to their ranks, the Terps must first focus on the Demon Deacons. Wake Forest may only have one victory on the season, but it suffered a narrow, 1-0 defeat against the Blue Devils two weeks ago and has lost three of its past four games in overtime, including a 2-1, extra-period loss to the Tar Heels on Sunday.

The Demon Deacons aren't as highly ranked as they have been in years past, but Meharg said that she expects to see the series between the two squads continue to be fierce.

"Wake Forest is a great team. Their record is not what they are," Meharg said. "They're exceedingly physically strong and they have dominant individual players."

"I know their record isn't so great, but they're a really tough team," Fernandez said. "They're a very competitive team and I think that we're going to have to play our best hockey against them."

vitale@umdbk.com