Duke women's soccer bounces back from Friday loss with 4-1 rout of High Point

Needing to bounce back from a 3-1 setback against No. 4 West Virginia Friday, the Blue Devils hoped to start fast in their final nonconference game Sunday evening.

Duke struggled in the first 25 minutes, but senior Toni Payne finally broke through to open things up for the Blue Devil offense.

Payne scored in the 28th minute and added an assist later in the game in No. 6 Duke’s 4-1 rout of High Point at Koskinen Stadium. Four different Blue Devils scored, with Duke dominating the action and outshooting the Panthers 27-5. 

“We realized that teams are going to scout us and how we like to play, so changing it up and maybe our attacking mids going out wide and trying to do more stuff like that is going to help us,” Payne said. “Varying the way we play is going to help us going forward.”

Before the Blue Devils’ first goal, Duke was unable to convert on a few chances, with freshman Ella Stevens sending a shot off the crossbar in the 11th minute that would have given her team the desired fast start.

The Blue Devils (5-2-1) broke through almost 15 minutes later when goalkeeper E.J. Proctor sent a long pass up the right side of the field that found Payne in stride. The Birmingham, Ala., native beat Panther goalkeeper Alex Hank for her third goal of the season, tied for most on the team, to give Proctor the first assist of her career.

High Point (3-4-1) did not roll over after allowing the first goal though, evening the score just five minutes later.

The Panther goal came off a corner kick that was headed by forward Bri Jean-Charles toward the far side of the goal and looked like it may have deflected off of Blue Devil defender Mia Gyau’s leg. 

“We didn’t do a great job of communicating. You saw with the goal, that was communication,” Duke head coach Robbie Church said. “We didn’t win the first ball, we didn’t communicate on the second ball…. It’s still not a perfect product.”

Church’s team responded to the equalizer quickly when sophomore Chelsea Burns dribbled down the left side of the field before feeding classmate Kayla McCoy, who notched her first goal of the season when she slipped by her defender and beat Hank with her left foot. 

McCoy has struggled to find the back of the net so far in her sophomore campaign, and so has classmate Taylor Racioppi. Last year’s leader in total points, Racioppi had one goal entering Sunday’s game but added her second tally with a nine-yard shot to the top left corner of the net seven minutes into the second half. Freshman Olivia Erlbeck—who had six shots Sunday—earned the assist. 

Defender Christina Gibbons put the game out of reach in the 76th minute on a goal set up by Payne and junior Imani Dorsey. The senior co-captain’s first goal of the season came after a cross into the box set up a finish from close range.

Church was happy with his team’s second-half response, but noted that the Blue Devils still have work to do entering ACC play after he questioned the team’s competitive spirit following Friday’s loss. Duke will take a few days off before hosting Boston College Saturday evening.

“It was better, we just had that lapse for a lot of the first half. We can’t have that on Saturday night,” Church said. “We have to play 90 minutes in the ACC. If you don’t, you really get burned.”