The No. 4 Blue Devils had their most successful weekend of the season, ousting defending national champion Northwestern (10-1) to break the No. 1 Wildcats' 31-game win streak and downing 10th-ranked Notre Dame (10-2) in a Friday-Sunday turnaround at Koskinen Stadium.
Duke (11-1) defeated Northwestern, 16-10, spurred by an 8-1 run in the first half that was too much for the defending champions to overcome. Sunday, against Notre Dame, the Blue Devils took longer to get started, falling behind 6-4 at halftime before surging back in the second period for an 11-10 victory.
"It's our only Friday-Sunday, and we do these things to get ourselves prepared for the ACC Tournament really," Duke head coach Kerstin Kimel said after the win over the Wildcats. "They're two tough, ACC-caliber teams."
Northwestern had won its first 10 games of the season, while Duke was coming off its first loss of the year, an 11-10 heartbreaker against Virginia April 1.
After trading pairs of goals in the first four minutes, the Blue Devils' 8-1 scoring spurt was kicked off by two goals from Duke career points leader Katie Chrest. She tallied the first off an assist from Jester and the second on a free position. After Caroline Cryer quick-sticked a shot to the top-right corner past Wildcat goalie Morgan Lathrop, increasing the Duke lead to 6-2, Northwestern called a timeout to regroup.
It did not stop the Blue Devil barrage, however, as Duke racked up two more goals before the Wildcats could respond.
"We knew we could score," Kimel said. "We weren't concerned about scoring, we knew if we had the ball we would generate shots.... We wanted to make sure we took care of the ball in transition."
After leading 11-4 at the half, Duke extended its advantage to nine at 15-6 with 16:59 remaining in the game. The Wildcats, however, went on an unanswered four-goal spree over the next 10 minutes that cut the Duke lead to five, forcing Kimel to call a timeout.
"We had to be a lot more calm and organized on defense," she said. "We were jumping double teams on them so early, and we didn't need to do that. We were handicapping ourselves by being overly aggressive."
The Blue Devils responded, not allowing Northwestern to score the rest of the contest, and Meeghan Ford scored the last goal of the game with just over a minute to play.
"Finally, we've put a full game together," said attacker Leigh Jester, who contributed two goals and four assists to the Duke attack. "We come out, blow teams away in the first half, and let them come back in the second half. We've never had a truly satisfying win, but today was awesome."
The momentum from the huge win did not carry immediately over to Sunday's matchup with Notre Dame. Duke trailed by two goals at halftime, but the Blue Devils picked up their play in the second half, using a 5-0 run early in the period to defeat the Fighting Irish.
"Our win on Friday was so much fun and so exciting for our team and the program, so we knew the win wouldn't mean anything if we lost today," Duke's Rachel Sanford said.
Chrest scored just nine seconds into the game, but the Blue Devils were then held scoreless for the next 14 minutes while Notre Dame recorded three straight goals.
Although Duke tied the game at three, the Fighting Irish kept up their attack and ended the half up two, winning six draw controls to Duke's five, and with goalie Carol Dixon totaling 11 saves to Megan Huether's five.
"We knew that we needed to take control of the draw and get the ground balls and really get the heart and hustle categories," Sanford said. "We really did that in the second half."
Down 8-6 five minutes into the second half, the Blue Devils went on a five-goal run, including two scores from Sanford and Jester each, to put Duke ahead 11-8.
"Leigh had a great game. She was really poised," Kimel said. "Rachel made a huge difference all over the field, maybe not so much in the scoring column, but caused turnovers, ground balls, the draw."
The Fighting Irish would have the last two goals of the game, but to no avail. As the clock ticked down, the Blue Devils played keep-away in the Notre Dame half to seal the win.
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