This year's women's lacrosse Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament in Charlottesville will showcase three of the top four teams in the nation-No. 1 Maryland, No. 3 North Carolina and No. 4 Virginia. Rather than being intimidated by this elite field, unranked Duke is hoping to take advantage of this opportunity to make its mark on the world of lacrosse.
The Blue Devils (5-7, 0-3 in the ACC) have an opening round date Saturday with two-time defending national champion and women's lacrosse juggernaut Maryland. The Terrapins (12-0, 3-0) enter the matchup with an NCAA Division I record 48-game winning streak. Despite the overwhelming odds facing them, the Blue Devils are approaching the game with the hopes of piecing together all of the factors necessary to pull off an upset.
"Maryland is tired," Duke coach Kerstin Kimel said. "They have a tough schedule. They may be looking ahead to the ACC Championship game, then next week they have a tough game against No. 2-ranked Loyola. I think right now Maryland is tired and we're kind of feeling good about ourselves. We're going to go up there with the attitude that we have nothing to lose because we really don't."
Duke enters the game on a high, coming off an 11-4 win Tuesday over Virginia Tech. Freshman Tricia Martin notched a hat trick in the game, raising her season goal total to 21. The win served as a tremendous confidence booster for the Blue Devils, who had lost six of their last seven games prior to that contest.
"We had a nice, convincing win on Tuesday, and we haven't had a real convincing win like that in a while," Kimel said. "We have won some games, but they haven't been real nice wins. I think that there's a certain amount of confidence that we have right now."
The Blue Devils are very familiar with the Terrapins. The two squads met on March 9 in College Park, Md., with the Terps using a 10-0 halftime advantage to win convincingly, 13-2.
The Terps feature six players with double figure goal totals, led by senior first-team All-American Sarah Forbes, who has 36 goals and 26 assists. Helping Forbes up front are fellow Australian Sascha Newmarch, who has 22 goals and eight assists, and junior Cathy Nelson, ranked second on the team with 28 goals and 17 assists this season. Minding the nets for Maryland is freshman Alex Kahoe, who has allowed a miniscule 5.22 goals per game.
"The thing that Maryland is so effective at and that they've always been so effective at is that they can run," Kimel said. "They love to run and gun and they're effective at it because they have tons of fresh legs on the sidelines that they can put in and pull out and give people appropriate rest.
"The other thing is that each and every one of them is a scoring threat from their attack all the way back to their line of defense. Every one of them is capable of scoring... That's an unbelievable luxury to have defenders who can score that way."
Duke's attempts to slow down the Maryland attack will be hurt by the absence of sophomore defender Sandy Johnston, who is most likely out for the rest of the season with a femoral stress fracture. Johnston started all 10 games that she played in, and added some experience to Duke's young defensive unit.
Also hobbled for the Blue Devils will be Martin, their leading scorer, and sophomore Kendra Basner, ranked third on the team in assists. Both have been slowed by severe shin splints. Additionally, the Blue Devils will be missing freshman Becky Morris.
Despite the injuries to some of their best players, the Blue Devils are confident that they have a chance to pull off arguably one of the greatest upsets in the history of college lacrosse. They feel no pressure, and are hoping to excel in just their second ACC Tournament.
"They're the ones that have to defend their title," sophomore Meghan McLaughlin said. "We're a second-year program and we're the underdogs. We just have to go out there and play as hard as we can and make them earn a win. They have more to lose than we do. We're definitely going out and we're not conceding anything to them before the game starts."
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