North Carolina Tar Heels Week Preview: August 21 – August 27

We are previewing the upcoming week for North Carolina Tar Heels Athletics for the week of August 21, 2023, thru August 27, 2023.

WE’RE BACK! Did you miss us?

The North Carolina Tar Heels Athletics season is officially underway, and our weekly previews have returned. One team (Women’s Soccer) actually got started last week, we’ll cover those games in this preview, but going forward those will be in the week in review.

Field Hockey – The Tar Heels begin a new era under Erin Matson. The greatest player in the history of the sport is now leading the charge after Karen Shelton retired after a successful 42 years. Carolina had an exhibition on Friday, August 18th, and Sunday, August 20th against Wake Forest and Duke respectively.

The regular season will officially get underway on August 25th when Chapel Hill plays host to a four-team ACC-Big Ten Challenge. On Friday, Wake Forest will play Iowa at 6:00 PM with UNC facing Michigan at 8:30 PM. Then on Sunday, August 27th, Michigan and Wake Forest will play at 10:30 AM and UNC-Iowa will follow at 1:00 PM. Both games on Friday will be televised on ACC Network, with no TV designation for the Sunday games.

Men’s Soccer – The Tar Heels have played three exhibition matches against Campbell, High Point, and James Madison. Now it’s time to kick off the regular season on Thursday, August 24th with two games this week. On Thursday, Loyola Maryland will visit Dorrance Field for the season opener. American will then come to town on Sunday, August 27th. Both games will begin at 7:30 PM and can be watched on the ACC Network Extra.

Women’s Soccer – Anson Dorrance’s team has already got the regular season started with a 1-0-1 record. The Tar Heels opened the 2023 regular season, which has the toughest schedule in the country, at No. 10 Penn State where they tied the Nittany Lions 0-0. On Sunday, one of the few unranked opponents on the schedule, California visited Chapel Hill where the Tar Heels beat the Golden Bears (future ACC opponent?) 3-1 with two of the three goals coming from freshmen Olivia Thomas and Melina Rebimbas.

The upcoming week consists of two home games at Dorrance Field (paired with men’s soccer as double headers for both days). On Thursday, August 24th, the Tar Heels will host Wisconsin at 4:00 PM. On Sunday, August 27th, they will host No. 22 Southern California at 1:00 PM. Both games will be followed by the men’s soccer matches and can be watched on ACC Network Extra.

Volleyball – The volleyball team has a new head coach at the helm, Mike Schall. The Tar Heels begin their season by traveling out west to Tuscon, Arizona to participate in the Catcus Classic where they will play three games across two days. On Friday, August 25th, they will face Pacific at 2:00 PM and then play Arizona later that night at 9:00 PM. On Saturday, August 26th, UC Davis will be the opponent at 2:00 PM.

All times are Eastern Standard Time. Games against Pacific and UC Davis can be watched on FloSports with the Arizona game being found on Pac-12 Insider.

Follow us @KeepingItHeel on X (formerly Twitter) and like our fan page on Facebook for continued coverage of North Carolina Tar Heels athletics news, updates, and recruiting.