The scoreboard showed 45 minutes left in the game, but it might as well have been counting the time left in Duke's women's soccer season. Reeling from four straight losses and facing a brutal stretch run, the Blue Devils needed a fix-and they needed it fast.
That's when Kristy Whelchel stepped forward, or more accurately, stepped back.
The sophomore from Boca Raton, Fla. approached head coach Bill Hempen at halftime of Duke's Oct. 20 match against SMU, and volunteered an idea that would eventually save the Blue Devils' season.
"She came to me and said 'We need to play four in the back [defensively], and I need to be that fourth player'," Hempen reflected.
At the time, Whelchel's idea seemed hard to justify; the talented midfielder was Duke's leading scorer with eight goals in 15 games and moving her to the back might have crippled an already frustrated Blue Devil offense. But Hempen went with the change, and the results were downright amazing.
"It was a turning point for a couple of kids," Hempen said. "[The change] brought Kim Daws on the field [to replace Whelchel]. She ended up playing about 100 minutes in that game; that was her first major game. She was exhausted at the end of the game, but it was the exhaustion she wanted well before, and she finally got her opportunity."
Assuming Whelchel's role in the midfield was a huge leap for the freshman from Northridge, Ca. Daws was still recovering from a torn ligament in her left knee, and she had not seen significant action in the first half of the season.
"Kim Daws was a medical miracle," Hempen said. "When she was game fit and capable of giving 90 minutes, we saw what she could do. She surpassed any expectations I had for her by a longshot."
If the move was good for Daws, it was great for Duke. Despite a radical shift, Whelchel never missed a beat. In fact, she finished the season so strongly that she was named third-team All-America by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)-as a defender, of course.
Dukel's rejuvenated back line of Whelchel, Lauren Cyran, Samantha Baggett and Liz Speights pulled together to turn the tide on what had threatened to become a disastrous year. The Blue Devils, 6-8-1 at the time of Whelchel's move, didn't lose another game in the regular season.
They finished with three straight wins over ranked teams, including a 1D0 shutout of No. 8 Florida in the season finale. Whelchel and company limited the Gators to just five shots in that contest, completely shutting down Danielle Fotopolous, the nation's leading scorer.
Despite a first-round conference tournament loss to Wake Forest, Duke's late season climb earned it an NCAA tournament bid. The Blue Devils dispatched Virginia for the second time in two weeks, advancing to face undefeated Nebraska in the second round.
But Lincoln, Neb. is not the most popular vacation spot in late November, and Duke found out why, falling 3-0 in arctic conditions that Hempen called "the worst I've ever experienced as a coach."
The wild ride finally over, Hempen savored the memories of a long season.
"The disappointment is that this team will be judged by its wins and losses," Hempen said of his 10-10-3 squad. "I don't want them to feel as though they weren't successful, because I think they were very successful given the competition we played and the environment we put them in."
Hempen was referring to Duke's schedule, rated the most difficult in the nation this year. 15 of Duke's 20 opponents made the NCAA tournament this year, and the Blue Devils faced eventual NCAA Champion North Carolina in an unprecedented season-opening showdown. The only Atlantic Coast Conference team ever to beat Carolina, Duke narrowly missed making history again this year, as the Tar Heels escaped with a 2-1 victory.
Did such a big game at the start hurt Duke's development as a young team?
"I think it did," Hempen said. "We felt we were on the verge of doing something really special that day, which didn't allow us to focus for a while afterwards."
Duke fell in two straight upsets after the UNC loss, and things began to look bleak.
"We played like a ranked team," senior co-captain Mandy Lehr said. "We played like we didn't have to work that hard to win. By the end [of the season] we were more of a blue-collar team, chasing down every loose ball."
Hempen, too, praised the tireless work ethic of his young team.
"You can tell a lot of things at practice," he said. "Who's out early, who stays late. This particular group-they were all like that."
The results of that hard work were often mixed; a 6-1-1 stretch was followed by a six-match winless streak. Then came the lineup shift and the strong finish.
"It was a learning season," Lehr said. "We had to go through these ups and downs to bring the program to a higher level. For the team, there's always next year-not for me though."
Indeed, next year looks bright for Duke, which will return nine starters. A total of six freshman started at least one game this season, including Daws, Speights and leading scorer Sherrill Kester (8 goals, 2 assists).
Hempen pointed to a rare team chemistry that made this perhaps the most memorable of his nine years at Duke. Asked to look ahead to next year, he quietly shook his head.
"No matter what you do it won't be the same," he said. "As much as it looks like it's going to be the same on paper, it can never be that way. There's a lot of good that came from this season that we'll remember. I'll remember every tear and I'll remember every smile."
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