The Chronicle
This season promises to be different for the women’s soccer team.
For the first time in head coach Robbie Church’s five-year tenure, his team is ranked in the top ten in several preseason polls.
“This is our fifth season together and I think it is a season we have been building toward,” Church said. “We’ve shown improvement in each of our seasons and so we go into this season with much anticipation. We’ve got a very good team—there is no question about that. We have a lot of talent out there.”
The Blue Devils’ record has improved in each of Church’s four previous seasons. Last year they finished 15-8, which included a trip to the Sweet 16 and an upset of No. 3 Virginia in the NCAA Tournament’s second round.
But with its recent success, the national perception of Duke (1-0-1), which is ranked 12th in the NSCAA, is changing and Church said his team welcomes the opportunity to prove that the recognition is well deserved.
“We’ve always done a really good job of being a team that hunts other teams, being the underdog,” Church said. “Now…everybody is going to come out and give us their best shot. We used to circle a couple games on our calendar—there are still some we circle on our calendars—but now we’re being circled by a lot of people. So we’ve got to learn to respond to that.”
Fortunately, the Blue Devils are an experienced team, returning 10 of their 11 starters from last year. However, sophomore Lorraine Quinn will be sidelined for the entire season after having surgery to repair an injury to her left foot. Senior tri-captain Kate Seibert will also be inactive until likely the Duke/adidas Classic, Sept. 16, after undergoing minor arthroscopic surgery in her left ankle.
The combination of Quinn’s injury and the graduation of Casey McCluskey, the 2004 ACC Offensive Player of the Year, led Church to change the team’s formation prior to the preseason. After playing a 4-4-2 almost exclusively for the entire 2004 season, the Blue Devils will play a 4-3-3 this year.
“We’re trying to utilize our talent to its fullest so we’ve got to try and work some of those kinks out at this point,” Church said. “We don’t change our ways for many teams but we wanted to be able to show some teams some different looks. We thought we had some more attacking players this year, so I think [the 4-3-3] fit our personality maybe a little bit better than the 4-4-2.”
The team is adapting to the adjustments well, tri-captain Carolyn Ford said, but the players are still learning their responsibilities within the configuration. Duke won its first game of the season, 1-0, in overtime against UNC-Greensboro, and tied its second against William & Mary, 1-1.
The team will rely on leading returning goal scorers senior Carolyn Riggs and junior Sarah McCabe, both of whom scored nine goals last season, to carry much of the offensive load.
“Regardless of what formation we play, we should be a dominant team this year because we have the talent to do that,” Ford said.
Meanwhile, the Blue Devils’ defense, which is intact from a year ago, will be bolstered by some strong freshmen, Ford said. Sophomore goalkeeper Alison Lipsher, who set a Duke record for consecutive minutes without allowing a goal during a stretch that spanned 516:34 minutes, is healthy after undergoing off-season knee surgery.
The Blue Devils’ next game is Sept. 2 at Yale.
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