UConn field hockey beats Syracuse to win fourth national championship

After years of falling short, the UConn field hockey team are now national champions for the second year in a row.

UConn beat Syracuse 1-0 on Sunday afternoon to win the program's fourth national title. Mckenzie Townsend scored the winner with 25:33 left in the first half on a play assisted by Anna Middendorf, and the defense was able to hold on from there as the Huskies successfully defended their title from a year ago.

The Huskies finish the season at 20-2, capping off a campaign in which the team also won the Big East regular season and conference title (ha!), and the program has now won eight-straight NCAA tournament games dating back to last year.

The title is also the second in the storied career of head coach Nancy Stevens, who has coached UConn since 1990 and had previously endured an astonishing run of bad luck in the tournament, with numerous championship caliber teams coming up short in varying fashion over the years. No more!

UConn has now won field hockey championships in 1981, 1985, 2013 and 2014, and the title is the 20th national championship in school history, joining the women's basketball team's nine titles, the men's team's four and the men's soccer team's three.

As has been pointed out numerous times on Twitter, the field hockey team's title also marks the first step towards UConn's repeating it's championship hat trick. Now the onus is on the men's and women's basketball teams to do their part and repeat as champions too.

In all seriousness though, congratulations to the field hockey team. They had a great season and they deserve all the praise that comes their way.

GO HUSKIES!