Snow or no snow, Sky Blue prepares for UNC

Even as the snow falls in New Jersey, Sky Blue is still set to take on the University of North Carolina Saturday at 3 p.m. in their second pre-season game. The match is set for the artificial turf at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, so if the temperatures go high enough tomorrow, the field could be playable.

Sky Blue FC hopes to build off last weekend's 3-0 win over St. John's University. All three goals came after halftime.

"UNC always presents a good challenge for us," said Sky Blue FC coach and technical director Jim Gabarra. "This match is really about new players figuring out how we want them to play. They objective is alwass to win, but we have a lot of mistakes to make and a lot of lessons to learn. It is great to get this level of competition in the preseason to see how players work together and in the structure of our system."

Sky Blue will have two key players available.  Electric striker Nadia Nadim arrived in camp on earlier this week and the club signed former USWNT defender Jennifer Grubb. Nadim lit up the scoreboard in a brief appearance last summer, scoring seven times in six games to ignite a five-game winning streak. Grubb has been coaching high school and college soccer for the last seven years. She played for Sky Blue FC in 2010.

Tickets for Saturday's match are $10.