Duke's field hockey team's dream season will move on--next stop: the Final Four.
The year of new school records and program bests continues for Duke's field hockey team, as it advanced through the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament at Duke's Williams Field this weekend. The Blue Devils did their best Dr. Jeckl and Mr. Hide impression Saturday and Sunday, sputtering like an old engine which needed to turn over once or twice before roaring to life.
Duke (18-3) slipped by American (17-4) 3-1 late Saturday morning in cold, wet conditions, and with one game separating them from the Final Four, the Blue Devils unleashed an offensive barrage on Old Dominion (14-10), routing the Lady Monarchs 8-2 Sunday afternoon before an overflow crowd of some 400 spectators, who filled the bleachers and ringed the Northeast section of grass outside Williams Field.
With the victory over Old Dominion, Duke earns its first-ever trip to the Final Four, which will be held next weekend in Amherst, Ma.
"It's great," said Duke head coach Beth Bozman, who is now the only coach in NCAA tournament history to lead two different schools to the Final Four. "From day one, this has been our goal and to really be able to realize your goal, it's special, really special."
The weekend's success comes after the best regular season in program history for the 2003 Duke squad, which set records in wins (17) and recorded four victories over top-5 teams, including a win over North Carolina last month, which snapped its losing streak to the Tar Heels at 49 straight games, some 22 years after the drought began.
"It's awesome to be going further than a Duke field hockey team has ever been," said junior Chrissy Murphy, who scored two goals against Old Dominion. "It's so great."
Said Duke sophomore Katie Grant, "It's an awesome feeling." Duke's previous best in the NCAA tournament was its second-round appearance last year, where it lost eventual champion Wake Forest. Following that loss, Duke hired Bozman, who guided Princeton to the national championship game twice before coming to Durham, as its new head coach.
"We kept talking all year that this is a different team, different time," Bozman said. "We pay no attention to past records, past streaks, which everybody kept taking about, and really focused on today's team. And that's what really got us here."
Bozman also said she was very happy to come away with a win against Old Dominion for the second time this season.
Duke beat the Lady Monarchs, who have won nine national championships since 1982, 3-2 at home in September after losing 8-1 to them last season. After a less-than-spectacular performance against American, the Blue Devils started Sunday's contest in a much stronger fashion, outshooting the Lady Monarchs 5-0 in the first ten minutes and getting on the scoreboard before the four minute mark. The Blue Devils seemed to ease up after the score, however, and the visitors evened the score at 1-1 some seven minutes later.
From there it was all Duke, as Old Dominion's goal reminded the Blue Devils that the game's outcome was still very much undecided, said junior Chrissy Murhpy, who scored twice Sunday.
Duke scored the game's next six goals in a run that straddled the halves and effectively stamped the Blue Devils' tickets to Amherst.
Old Dominion's goalie blocked Duke junior Johanna Bischof's penalty stroke at the beginning of the second half, and for a short while, it seemed the momentum had swung back the other way. But Duke's Nicole Dudek finished off a rebound in front of the Lady Monarchs goal several minutes later to score and resume the rout.
Sophomore Katie Grant and junior Gracie Sorbello combined for the team's first four goals and now lead the team with 22 and 21 scores, respectively. They are the only players in Duke history to have scored over 20 goals in a season since Melissa Panasci, the overall goals and points leader in team history, accomplished that feat three times in the mid-1990's.
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