The Limestone College field hockey team will come home Sunday to play exhibition matches against club teams from Division I powers Wake Forest and the University of South Carolina. Local residents will get a rare chance Sunday to see the Limestone College field hockey team play at home in the program's first season.

Limestone will host free exhibition games against club field hockey teams from Wake Forest University and the University of South Carolina. Limestone faces Wake Forest at 11 a.m. followed by USC at 3 p.m.

Both exhibition games will be played on Timken Field, located beside Stephenson Dining Hall on the Limestone College campus. Wake Forest and USC will play at 1 p.m between the two Limestone field hockey matches.

"We are very excited to be back in Gaffney and our home field. This is a great opportunity for the community to come out and learn more about field hockey," Limestone field hockey coach Lindsay Jackson said. "We hope not only to be successful at the Division II level, but we hope to spur the growth of the sport in the South."

Field hockey is a team sport resembling ice hockey on an open field. Players use curved sticks shaped like candy canes in attempt to score goals by hitting, pushing, or flicking the ball with hockey sticks into the opposing team's goal.

Limestone is playing fifteen of its sixteen regular season matches on the road. Limestone will play its only home match on Oct. 10 against Catawba College.

Most Division II field hockey programs are in Pennsylvania, Maryland and northern states.

"We wanted to play club teams from a couple major Division I programs because it gives different competition and allows us to play local teams," Jackson said.

Wake Forest has a strong club program which has been successful in recent years. The club team is separate from the school's Division I field hockey team, which played for the 2008 NCAA title.