Light blue was all the women's soccer team could see yesterday afternoon--up, down, all around. Whether it was tracking one of the many balls up in the air against the muggy azure sky, or trying to manage a header against almost six feet of cerulean-clad UCLA Bruins, or being enclosed by even more of those blue jerseys at once time, Duke could see everything but themselves.
The Bruins' hulking bodies and rough style dictated an unfamiliar tempo--a West-coast offense, one might say--for the Blue Devils, who fell behind early in responding to all the balls UCLA put in the air and couldn't return to the trademark Duke game of speed on the ground until they'd already been upended, 2-1.
"That's a very athletic team," Duke head coach Robbie Church said. "Along with [North] Carolina, they're as good athletically as you're going to find in the country. And they're good in the air, and they do what they do really well, and that's putting the ball in the air. We're not good in the air. They play bigger and stronger."
Much of the game took place in the midfield, where beleaguered battles for possession and scoring chances went on for minutes at a time. UCLA's first-team All-American sweeper, 5-foot-10 Nandi Pryce, stopped multiple Duke opportunities before they could even get started, while the Bruins used some crafty footwork of their own to get to Blue Devil goalie Thora Helgadottir and out-shoot Duke 13 to seven--and seven to three in the all-important first half.
In the second half, with the heat setting in and UCLA on a roll, Duke made a sorely-needed switch to a more offensive formation and started pushing a bit harder in the midfield. And almost as soon as Church substituted speedster Carolyn Riggs and point person Gwendolyn Oxenham into the game in the 66th minute, the Blue Devils were racing around with crisp passes, playing their game--"shorter balls, quicker balls, faster balls, balls to our feet," as Church desired.
Duke's lone goal was definitive of this young, swift team's style, with Riggs sending a touch pass to a charging Casey McCluskey, who swept to the right of two defenders and crossed the ball to freshman Lauren Tippets, who just had to tap in a goal after McCluskey's and Riggs' tap dancing to set it up.
But by the time UCLA rumbled down the other end of the field to force in a quirky goal, the Blue Devils slipped into panic mode, running circles around the Bruins but also around themselves, playing closer to their potential but with no semblance of organization--just of confusion and an overdose of that pale, almost Carolina, blue.
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