A women’s college soccer match came to a screeching halt this week as five black bears joined the spectacle.
The game, with South Carolina’s Winthrop University visiting the University of North Carolina Asheville, had 15 minutes left in the first half when the bears appeared on a hillside near Greenwood Field, as shown in a video on social media.
The two teams subsequently entered a bear delay. The human spectators were also relocated when the five bears, presumed to be a mother bear and four cubs, got close to the bleachers.
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UNC Asheville coach Andy McNab told The Athletic, “I don’t think our [players] were scared. I think it was more just like, my family was there with two young kids, the men’s [team] staff was there with young kids. I think they were just trying to get people out of that general vicinity.”
The bears ultimately left on their own, with the Wednesday game ending in a 2-1 victory for UNC Asheville.
The five bears are known to those on campus.
Janet Cone, the athletic director for UNC Asheville, told college sports news site Extra Points that “Ten, 20 years ago, you’d never see any bears, since there [were] so many wooded areas for them to live. … Now it doesn’t feel uncommon to see a bear around here. What’s uncommon is seeing bears this late in the season, but Wednesday was awful warm.”
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