Blue Devils employ stall ball to edge Tar Heels

CHAPEL HILL - If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the legendary Dean Smith must be sitting in his office with a smile on his face.

That's because the No. 3 Duke women's lacrosse team took a page from Smith's coaching playbook. Using their version of the "four corners" offense which Smith invented in the mid-1960s, the Blue Devils (6-2, 1-1 ACC) frustrated and confused the defense of fifth-ranked North Carolina (6-3, 2-1) en route to an 8-7 victory.

Duke's spread offense controlled the pace of the game early on and took advantage of its opportunities, scoring four goals in the first 20 minutes of play. At the same time, Duke limited the Tar Heels' possessions and virtually eliminated their offensive staple, the ability to get into the open field and utilize their team quickness.

"We just wanted to maximize our possessions," Duke coach Kerstin Kimel said. "And that's what we felt like we could do. Carolina is a much faster team than we are, and we felt like we needed to keep the ball out of their hands."

The Blue Devils jumped out to an early 4-1 lead on the strength of two Kate Kaiser goals. Kaiser finished the night with a hat trick to lead all Duke scorers.

"Kaiser was phenomenal," Kate Soulier said. "She scored some really key goals for us.... She has an incredible awareness and great ability to play this game, and it's an absolute pleasure having her on the team."

Even when the Tar Heels had opportunities to run in the open field, Duke was able to thwart most of those scoring opportunities because of its defensive sliding and ability to anticipate the Carolina passes.

"The defense was absolutely phenomenal and had great composure [tonight]," Soulier said. "Slides were totally early and the defense was coming up with big plays, ground balls. They were just doing it all. What they were doing was getting momentum, which was helping us a lot on attack. They won the game for us."

Carolina still had one last chance to tie the score with less than two minutes remaining but missed a chance to connect on a one-timer. Duke picked up the loose ball and was able to run out the clock and preserve the victory.

Despite their lethargic start, the Tar Heels battled to remain within striking distance of Duke. Meghann Mohler's goal cut the Blue Devil lead to 5-4 with 24:04 left to play. That's when things began to get a little interesting.

During a scrum in which Duke looked more like rugby's New Zealand Blackshirts than a lacrosse team, several players hit the hard turf at Henry Field trying to recover the ball.

But, it was junior midfielder Courtney Rodgers who finally picked up the loose ball and found a clear path to the cage to put Duke up 6-4, knocking some of the wind out of the Tar Heels' sails.

"Ground balls and those loose balls are always a big part of our game plan," Rodgers said with a huge smile. "If you win those, it helps you so much to gain momentum and get into the game.

"It felt really good. We were all hustling to redefend. I think everyone was just excited [about the goal] because we had redefended and capitalized and got a goal off of it."