Field hockey travels to North Carolina for doubleheader

The IU women’s field hockey team travels to Durham, N.C., this weekend to play a set of games against No. 10 Duke on Friday and No. 17 Drexel on Saturday.

IU junior forward Audra Heilman sounded optimistic for the matchups with the Blue Devils and the Dragons this weekend.

“We aren’t really looking at rankings, we’re really just looking at being prepared ourselves,” she said. “We are going to play two teams, one of which we’ve played in the past.”

Heilman was named to the Big Ten’s List of Players to Watch for the 2013 season.
“It’s an honor to be on that list with those names because there are some pretty amazing people on that list,” Heilman said. “It feels good.”

IU Coach Amy Robertson said the biggest factor for this weekend is for the team to focus on playing as a team, not as individuals.

“We have to focus on being resilient,” Robertson said. “We have put the pieces together. The best way to get through two tough games is to be at your best as a group, not just as individuals. We have to be aggressive with how we play, we can’t be tentative.”

Another challenge  Robertson faces this weekend is playing two tough games in a short stretch.

“We do a lot in the week before to practice to find the things that we need to focus on for those games,” she said. “We have things ready for both games.”

Robertson also acknowledged that playing two games against moderately unfamiliar teams could be a challenge to game plan for.

“We don’t have any current video, so it’s mainly knowing the tendencies of the teams, but also focusing on ourselves and being prepared,” she said. “Recognition is really important. We will have scouting reports but we sort of take those with a grain of salt because it is really based off of things from the previous years. Typically, teams carry the same tendencies throughout the years.”

Robertson said coaches are not able to meet with players the night before games due to NCAA regulation.

“We can’t put too much into our players’ heads the day of the game,” Robertson said. “They just have to be confident and know the game plan and be ready to go.”

Follow reporter Dan Matney on Twitter @Dan_Matney