BALTIMORE - All along, the goal of the women's lacrosse team was to reach the Final Four. But once that goal was realized, the Blue Devils didn't have enough to make their dreams come true.
A few Duke mistakes at critical moments were the difference in an otherwise evenly matched game with Virginia, as the third-seeded Blue Devils lost to the Cavaliers 9-8 in the national semifinals at Homewood Field.
Virginia (15-6) broke a 5-5 tie early in the second half and never lost the lead, successfully keeping Duke (13-5) at bay en route to the Cavaliers' third victory over the Blue Devils this season.
"We're a young team and I think we made some crucial mistakes that you can't afford to make against a really good team like Virginia," Blue Devil coach Kerstin Kimel said. "Virginia's a tournament-experienced team and they capitalized on our mistakes.... I don't think it was the Cavaliers who beat us tonight; I felt we beat ourselves."
Virginia's Amy Fromal netted the game winner with 5:47 left in the game. The score gave the Cavaliers a 9-7 lead, but Duke struck back two minutes later when Claire Sullivan converted on a pass from Tricia Martin.
The Cavaliers won the ensuing draw control but then turned the ball over to the Blue Devils with 3:20 left. Duke wasted the opportunity five seconds later, however, when an errant Blue Devil pass gave possession right back to the Cavaliers.
And although it seemed Duke had thrown away its last chance, the Blue Devils got yet another chance to tie the game when they regained possession less than two minutes later.
Virginia defender Stephy Samaras made a huge defensive stop on Martin, when with 1:19 left in the game, she forced the ball loose from Martin's stick and then scooped up the ground ball. The Cavaliers ran out the remainder of the clock and advanced to the national championship game, which they lost to Maryland 16-6.
"I was guarding Martin and I really didn't know what she was going to do," Samaras said. "All day I was working on not checking so what I did was try to hold bodies with me. Luckily, she came into my body and the ball dropped on the ground."
And as the ball dropped, so did Duke's last chance to complete the comeback.
Virginia took an early 5-2 lead that a 3-0 Duke run successfully eliminated in a game that saw three ties, but never a Blue Devil lead. During a 13 minute Duke scoring drought in the second half, Cavalier keeper Francis Segarra made several key stops while recording a career-high 17 saves.
But in the contest's final stretch, Duke found a way past Segarra and cut the Virginia lead to one three different times. Yet the Blue Devils could never get over the hump and tie the game.
"They scored the first goal of the game and right away it puts you at their heels trying to get back at them," Duke freshman Kate Kaiser said. "We're a second-half team, so when we scored those two goals right away [to start the second half] I thought, 'Wow, we're going to do this.'
"But when you come so close and they put another one in, it sets you back even further. It makes it harder to come back."
On the other end of the field, it was Blue Devil goalie Shannon Chaney who prevented the Wahoos from bursting the game open. She finished with 14 saves and was especially crucial early in the second half. Virginia led by two at halftime, one of five two-goal leads the Cavaliers held on the night, but Chaney's defense never let Virginia's lead go up to three after the Cavaliers' early 5-2 advantage.
"I thought Duke did a great job of coming after us the entire time," Virginia coach Julie Myers said. "We went up on them a couple of times with a couple of goals, but we could never get over that hump. They always stayed within two goals.
"I'm really proud of our girls for fighting through that game and staying focused and composed for the full 60 minutes."
All game long the Cavaliers played with composure and did the things they had to do to win. They took advantage of ill-timed Blue Devil turnovers, scoring several goals on ill-fated Duke clear attempts.
The Blue Devils were just 10-of-16 on clear attempts on the evening, a statistic that could have been the decisive factor in a closely contested battle between two evenly matched teams.
But even more importantly, the Cavaliers always scored down the stretch when they had to. The Blue Devils were always kept just out of reach, forced to play in catch-up mode the entire game.
The win marked UVa's third victory over the Blue Devils this season and the Cavaliers are now a perfect 7-0 against Duke in the history of the programs.
"To the team, [the series history] was an advantage. To the coaches, it was a little nerve-racking," Myers said. "Every year we play Duke since they started their program it has gotten closer and closer. It's a scary game in that sense, because at some point your time's going to run out."
Time did not run out on Virginia, but instead brought about a close to the most successful Duke season in the program's history.
For Duke, although the outcome was certainly disappointing, the accomplishments of the season were not forgotten. All season long, the Blue Devils had just one goal-to make the Final Four. They did just that last week when they erased an 8-3 deficit to snag an impressive come-from-behind 11-10 victory over James Madison.
Senior Meghan McLaughlin has seen the team evolve from its 3-12 inaugural campaign to this year's Final Four squad. She, as much as anyone, can understand just what it means to have played on women's lacrosse's center stage.
"It's been an amazing four years," she said. "We've come a long way since that 3-12 season my freshman year. Just to be able to come to this point, especially knowing where we were freshman year, it's been a great trip."
NOTE: Three Blue Devils were named to All-American teams this past week. Martin was named to the first team for the second year in a row, Kaiser was a second-team pick and Kate Soulier was selected to the third team.
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