There's no guarantee that this will lead to a championship, or even another big win this season. But regardless of what happens from here on out, Friday night's women's lacrosse game will always be remembered for one thing: the arrival of Duke onto the national scene.
The 14th-ranked Blue Devils (2-0, 1-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) got four goals from Tricia Martin and three by Courtney Rodgers and thoroughly dominated top-ranked Maryland, 10-6, at Duke Lacrosse Stadium. The loss was the Terrapins (0-1, 0-1) first in the Atlantic Coast Conference in five years, and the three-time defending champs also suffered only their second defeat since 1995. The Blue Devils, meanwhile, recorded their first conference win in the three-year existence of the program.
"I think we got Maryland at a very opportunistic time," coach Kerstin Kimel said. "But I could not be prouder of our players. We were well-prepared; they stuck to the game plan. We could not have played better. I think this is [a coming out]."
The win was akin to the women's soccer team upsetting North Carolina, 3-2, in 1994. Both that team and this one were heavy underdogs battling a defending champion who make losing an exception. Both teams came away with what has to be considered among the biggest wins in Duke's women's athletic history.
Friday night, the Blue Devils never gave Maryland a chance.
"I thought we could play a little bit better, but I'm not going to talk about our play as much as I thought Duke was great tonight," Maryland coach Cindy Timchal said. "I thought they were hungrier
Duke opened the game focused and never trailed. The Blue Devils held possession for the first six minutes of the first half and took a quick 2-0 lead on goals from Martin and Emily Hickman. Duke took advantage of an entirely new Maryland defense, as the Terrapins graduated their entire unit from last year's championship squad.
After Maryland cut its deficit to 2-1, the Blue Devils answered with three goals in a string of five minutes midway through the first half. Martin scored two, giving her a quick hat trick, within a span of 10 seconds, while freshman Kate Soulier added the other.
Duke avoided the Terps' high-scoring attack by, logically, maintaining possession of the ball. The Blue Devils held the ball in Maryland's side of the field for at least two-thirds of the first half and waited patiently for their offensive chances.
"It was our game from the start," junior Meghan McLaughlin said. "We knew the key was possession and draw controls and ground balls would do it for us. We just really believed in ourselves."
Maryland rallied late in the first half on a pair of goals by Noelle Mitchell, but Duke had an answer. With 49 seconds left in the half, Amy Noble connected on a long pass to Rodgers, who found Martin in front of the net for an easy stuff-in and 6-3 Blue Devil lead.
Before the half was over, Rodgers found the back of the net with just 15 seconds left to give Duke a commanding halftime advantage. Maryland had one last chance before the intermission, but defenseman Sandy Johnston broke up a two-on-one break.
In the second half, Maryland came as close as 8-5 before Blue Devil goalkeeper Shannon Chaney buckled down, making 10 of her 12 overall saves to keep the Terrapins at bay. Rodgers scored a pair of goals, one on a behind-the-goal pass from Kendra Basner, to put Duke up 10-5 and seal the win. As the clock wound down, Maryland's bench sat in stunned silence as the improbable loss became a reality.
"I never really thought of the day that we could come out here and beat them, and beat them so completely," Johnston said. "We seemed to have no problem with it and showed how far you can really come in a year. We just set the pace early on, and from then there was no coming back for them."
Now, the challenge at hand for the Blue Devils is to move beyond the benchmark win and continue to prove how vastly improved they are from last year's 8-8 squad. Kimel gave her team two days off after the game, though it was the rough schedule that gave Duke an advantage against Maryland.
While the Terrapins were playing their first game, Duke had already played one regular-season contest and a few scrimmages. The result was a monumental one for the first-place Blue Devils.
"It seemed like the last few years, we knew we could get to this point but we still had to prove it to everyone else," Hickman said. "We didn't really have a big game last year that would do that for us, but tonight we did."
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