Duke takes on pair of ranked opponents

The women's lacrosse team (8-4) will conclude its regular season this Friday and Sunday when it will host two more top-20 opponents, No. 20 Stanford (7-5) and No. 9 Johns Hopkins (11-1).

 Stanford's program is on the rise, thanks in large part to the stellar performance of senior goalkeeper Christina Saikus, who ranks eighth in the country in save percentage (.566) and 15th in goals against average (8.40).

 The Cardinal is a relative newcomer to the upper echelons of women's lacrosse--this year it earned its first ever preseason ranking. Its inexperience has shown against superior foes this season--Stanford is 0-5 against ranked opponents. Head coach Kerstin Kimel is not taking a win against Stanford for granted however, and Kimel will not let her team lower its guard against the visitors from Palo Alto, Calif.

 "I think for us, every team remaining on our schedule is a threat, and we treat every single opponent the same," Kimel said. "They have some dangerous attackers; they have some nice athletes, but I think that this season, we have been our own worst enemy at times. I think that when we're on, though, we do the simple things well and we are able to execute both offensively and defensively."

 Pearce, a two-time American Lacrosse Conference Player of the Week, has scored 11 goals and earned 16 points in her last four games. Key, who on April 6 earned her first-ever Inside Lacrosse Player of the Week award, is coming off a five-goal performance against Villinova and has scored 14 goals in her last four contests.

 "Heidi Pearce is a tremendous player," Kimel said. "I know she's battled some injuries over the last couple of years, but from what I can tell from looking at her stats it appears as if she has really come on in her senior year..... As for Mary Key, I know she's really quick and she handles the ball a ton for them. We're just going to have to try our best to limit them as best we can. We've been very well prepared going into all our games this year, and I think that if we stick to our game plan we'll be in really good shape."

 Part of that game plan will be ensuring that the Blue Devils cut down on their unforced errors, a problem that Kimel has often cited as the deciding factor in Duke's close losses this year.

 "I think we're really focused on improving from the mistakes that we made," said Katie Chrest, Duke's leading goal scorer. "We know that come two weeks from now, in ACC's, we're going to run into problems if we continue to make those mistakes."

 The other part of Duke's keys to success this weekend will be playing strong second-half defense. The Blue Devils have spent much of their practice time this week rebuilding their defensive strategy.

 "This week we went back to [defensive] fundamentals," said senior defender Meghan Walters, who also helped her team's offensive effort last Sunday by scoring six goals, a school record, against Richmond. "We reintroduced everything.... Everybody's been working really hard these past two days, and I think it will pay off this weekend."