The women's lacrosse team proved on Friday that it is a step ahead of where it was a year ago, during its inaugural season. However, on Sunday, Maryland showed the Blue Devils that they still have a long way to go before they reach the top of the lacrosse hierarchy.
The Blue Devils (2-1, 0-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) prevailed 7-6 over Boston College on Friday at the Duke Lacrosse Stadium in a game marked by sloppy play, but fell 13-2 to the two-time defending national champions at Maryland on Sunday.
"We're glad to come out of the weekend 1-1, but I was disappointed because the discipline wasn't there," Duke coach Kerstin Kimel said. "[Maryland] showed us some specific weaknesses that we need to continue to work on. But when we did some of those things in the second half against Maryland, we saw some real improvement, and that's real good."
Duke fell behind 10-0 in the first half against the Terps, who own a 56-game winning streak, having not lost since the 1994 National Championship game.
The second half was another story, though, as Maryland only managed a 3-2 goal advantage. Sophomore Meghan McLaughlin finally broke through for Duke with 12 minutes remaining, and freshman Tricia Martin also broke into the scoring column.
"In the first half, we had absolutely no control of the game," Kimel said. "We just didn't do anything with the ball on offense and Maryland just ate us up. In the second half, we took much better control of the ball and stuck to the game plan, and we saw that we could be efficient in doing what we want to do with the ball."
The game was also a step above the way Duke played against the Terps a year ago, despite the similar 11-goal differential. Duke lost to Maryland 12-1 at home in the first ACC game in the program's young history.
"Last year, it could have been worse," Kimel said. "Maryland kind of went easy on us [last year], but today they took it at us. Their skills are far superior to ours, but we were clearly more competitive this year. We could run with them and our defense actually created some turnovers.
"And [freshman goalie] Shannon Chaney played out of her mind. I can't say enough good things about her."
Chaney registered 19 saves on 30 Maryland shots, while only allowing 12 goals.
In Friday's win over Boston College, the Blue Devils jumped out to three-goal leads twice, only to have them slip away both times. But the Eagles never managed to take the lead, as Chaney continually thwarted Boston College. She registered 10 saves on the afternoon with the help of juniors Heather Keaney and Sandy Johnston on defense.
"Our defense and our goalie saved our butts in the second half," Kimel said. "They were the reason we held on and won."
The Blue Devils jumped out to a 4-1 lead early in the game, only to see BC close the game to 4-3 with 40 second to go in the first half. However, Amy Murnick found the back of the net nine seconds later to give Duke a little more padding going into the second period.
Duke scored again three minutes into the second half to build its lead to 6-3 on a shot by junior middie Karen Sutton, but then the offense began to sputter.
"I don't know what it was, but there was not that spunk in our step like we had the other day [in a 15-4 win over Vanderbilt on Tuesday]," Kimel said. "We were just real sluggish today, so when we challenged on offense, we didn't have options and we didn't have the ball movement that we usually have on attack."
The Eagles closed to 6-5 on a pair of goals by Danielle Wood, but McLaughlin scored what turned out to be the winning goal with 18 minutes left, and Chaney held on to give Duke the win.
"[Boston College] was an ugly win, but we'll take it," Kimel said. "And Maryland was a good measuring stick for our program because they are where we want to be."
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