Four different Blue Devils recorded a hat trick Sunday as the No. 2 women's lacrosse team won its ninth straight game, setting a school record.
The balanced attack helped Duke (9-0) stay undefeated, as it downed 19th-ranked Vanderbilt (4-5), 15-11. It was an important win for the Blue Devils, who now must prepare for their toughest stretch of the season-three consecutive games against top-10 competition.
"Offensively we did a lot of good things and I felt like defensively when we stepped up and played to our ability we really did well," head coach Kerstin Kimel said.
The two teams traded goals during the early part of the game, until the Commodores, led by Cara Giordano's back-to-back scores, ran off three straight to take a 5-3 advantage with 14:27 remaining in the first half. The short run prompted Kimel to call a timeout so her team could regroup.
"The two biggest things we talked about were the draw and we tightened up defensively," Kimel said. "The kids responded to that. I thought they did a good job."
Thirty seconds later, Duke goalkeeper Megan Huether made a save on a low Vanderbilt shot, and the Blue Devils capitalized on the next possession. Katie Chrest made a no-look shot that caught Commodore goalie Brooke Shinaberry out of position.
Over the next six minutes, Duke reeled off four more goals to gain an 8-5 advantage, and the Blue Devils would never trail again.
"We started to just push the ball and be a little bit more savvy on offensive transition," Kristen Waagbo said. "We just tried to get some fast break goals because we knew that was one of their weak spots."
The Blue Devils went into halftime with a 9-7 lead, having outshot their opponent 18-14.
After the break, Duke continued its aggressiveness on attack. Waagbo scored an unassisted goal from right in front of the cage less than three minutes into the half, and Leigh Jester followed that score with one of her own 32 seconds later. The junior rolled to the middle and fired a high shot into the net for an 11-7 margin.
The Blue Devils continued their spurt by pushing ahead on Vanderbilt turnovers and scoring on unsettled situations. By the time their 6-1 run was complete, the Blue Devils held a 15-8 lead with just less than 14 minutes to play in the contest.
"That's something that we do very well," Kimel said of scoring in transition. "We had some great efforts in terms of creating turnovers in our ride, and I thought we did an awesome job of that and we capitalized off a lot of those turnovers, which was great."
Over the final 10 minutes, though, Duke turned the ball over and enabled Vanderbilt to score three unanswered goals. Although the seven-goal advantage that the Blue Devils had built was too much for the Commodores to overcome, Duke's inability to close out its opponent is something it has struggled with throughout the season.
"The reality is that some of the opponents we have coming up in our next stretch of three games are going to beat us on that stuff," Kimel said. "We need to take a little bit more pride in our ball-handling and our end of the game and tight situations."
Waagbo, Jester, Chrest and Rachel Sanford each finished the game with three goals, and Huether tallied 10 saves.
In the first half, Chrest became Duke's all-time points leader when she passed Tricia Martin. She now has 239 career points.
Over the next two weeks the Blue Devils will face 2005 NCAA runner-up Virginia, NCAA champion Northwestern and No. 10 Notre Dame.
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