When the field hockey team travels to Winston-Salem Saturday to take on Wake Forest at 1 p.m., it will be experiencing the ACC's version of Roland Garros.
Just as the French Open is played on the clay courts of Roland Garros, the Demon Deacons play on santer, a sandy surface which slows the ball and decreases its bounce.
The alternative surface is important for two reasons this weekend. First, Wake Forest (2-0) is the only team to practice consistently on santer, giving the Demon Deacons a considerable home-field advantage.
Second, the 10th-ranked Blue Devils (2-2) have shifted to a wide-open, attacking offense this season that will surely slow down on the santer.
Last season, Wake rode the home-turf advantage to a 3-0 shutout of Duke. The win broke a streak of six consecutive losses to the Blue Devils.
Wake jumped to an early lead and held its momentum throughout the game. That won't happen this time, insist the Blue Devils.
"We've been working on a few tactics, but mostly we want to just come out with a lot of energy and play hard the whole [game]," junior Courtney Sommer said. "If we play with the energy we need and are aggressive, I think we can build some momentum, and then the goals will start coming."
The circumstances this year are far different from a year ago. When the two teams last met in Winston-Salem, Duke was coming off a big win over James Madison and a one-goal loss to North Carolina. Thus, the loss at Wake was a bit of a letdown.
This year, the Blue Devils are coming off a 6-1 pounding at the hands of JMU on Sunday. The Dukes grounded the Blue Devils' offensive attack, running up a 15-5 edge in shots.
Such sub-par offense could be a concern for Duke, especially after last year's shutout on the santer. The Demon Deacons already have two shutouts in 1999, blanking Louisville 8-0 and Appalachian State 5-0. Sommer, however, thinks the Duke offense will show up ready to play.
"We've really been working on taking players on one-on-one at high speed," she said. "We have been going over receiving the ball and continuing to move forward to draw a corner or foul or get a shot. We want to integrate into our plays, so that when we receive the ball in the game our first instinct is to move forward and be dangerous."
On the defensive end, the Blue Devils will have to pay special attention to Jenny Everett, who was named last week's ACC Co-Player of the Week after scoring a pair of goals in Wake Forest's victory over Louisville. Everett has had a solid start to her junior season and was a thorn in Duke's side last year, notching a goal and an assist against the Blue Devils.
But Sommer thinks that this time Duke will be ready for the Wake Forest attack.
"This week we've just worked on playing really hard, physical hockey against one another in practice," Sommer said. "Games against Wake Forest are always a battle for us. It seem like every time we get together it turns into a blood bath out there."
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