AMHERST, Mass. -- Duke's field hockey wasted no time taking advantage of its first trip to the Final Four Friday night.
The Blue Devils, seeded second, dominated the first 15 minutes of play and grinded their way to a 4-2 victory over third-seeded Maryland at Garber Field in Amherst, Mass.
Earlier in the day, top-seeded Wake Forest advanced to its second consecutive title game slipping by underdog Michigan 1-0. The Blue Devils will face the defending national champions for the fourth time this season Sunday at 12:30 in a rematch of this year's ACC Championship game, which the Demon Deacons won 3-2 in overtime.
"We're just ecstatic to be here," head coach Beth Bozman said. "You dream of going to the final four, and we realized that dream, and then getting to the finals and we realized that. And as Gracie [Sorbello, a junior forward,] said a few minutes ago, 'It is almost surreal right now.' We will regroup tomorrow and really enjoy the moment for a day and then get back to work."
Duke got all the scoring it would need in the first 15 minutes of the game, attacking the Terrapins' passing game, controlling the middle of the field and playing to its strengths--taking advantage of its penalty corner opportunities and its speed on the wings.
Sorbello slammed a shot from 15 yards out on Duke's first penalty corner opportunity of the game less than two minutes into the contest. Sophomore forward Katie Grant juked a Terrapin defender along Maryland's baseline and sneaked a shot by the near post just 61 seconds later to give Duke a 2-0 cushion before either team had even settled into its rhythm.
Duke pushed the lead to 3-0 12 minutes later when junior forward Chrissie Murphy finished off the team's most accurate stretch of passing in the game. Five Blue Devils handled the ball as they moved it up the right sideline and then sent the ball across the field to Murphy.
The Blue Devils seemed to ease up and play less aggressively after Maryland called a timeout two minutes after Murphy scored. That change in momentum lasted for the remainder of the first half and most of the second. The Terps finally got a shot past Duke goalie Chisty Morgan--Maryland only put four of seven shots on frame in the game to Duke's nine of nine tally. Maryland's Collen Barbieri's reverse stick shot beat Morgan to the near post when she found herself open and with a clear shot in front of the cage with 14 minutes left.
After Duke's Kim Van Kirk pushed the ball over the goal line in the middle of a scrum in front of Maryland's goal with seven minutes remaining, Barbieri cut Duke's lead to two goals a minute later. But the Terps would get no closer after that, giving the Blue Devils a chance to win their first ever national title to culminate the best season in school history under first-year coach Bozman.
"I think that both teams were nervous, a little gittery," said Bozman, who went to two national championship games with Princeton in 1996 and 1998.
"You get to the point where you are afraid of making mistakes in order to win, and we probably did a little bit of that," she said. "But we still stuck to our game and ended up winning."
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