For a Duke team that has had its ups and downs this season, tonight's game is an opportunity to start over.
Posting a record just above .500, the Blue Devils (9-8-2) received an at-large bid to the NCAA Women's College Cup Monday, just days after falling to Florida State in the first round of the ACC Championships Nov. 1.
Tonight, however, Duke's losses-and wins, for that matter-will be inconsequential when the Blue Devils take on No. 22 Louisville (13-4-2) in the first round of the College Cup at 5:30 p.m. in Knoxville, Tenn.
"We feel like it's a new life for us," head coach Robbie Church said. "We feel like it's a chance to kind of amend some of our work in the regular season."
In a tough conference, Duke lost several close games this year that dropped its record and position in the conference standings.
The Blue Devils lost three matches to ACC opponents by just one goal-including a 1-0 rescheduled game against then-No. 20 Wake Forest, a team Duke was beating 1-0 Oct. 11 before the original game was postponed because of lightning. The loss gave the Blue Devils the No. 7 seed in the ACC tournament when a win would have placed them in second.
"We feel [our record] understates how talented our team is and how much we're capable of," senior captain Rebecca Moros said. "We haven't had that much luck all season so a little piece of luck and we squeaked in-we'll take it."
After struggling with capitalizing on scoring opportunities all season, Duke has used the past week to practice offensive strategies and combination plays. Church said although the team creates quality chances in games, it needs to execute them against a tough Louisville squad.
"Louisville's got a very good defense," Church said. "We need to run hard through the box and just take a second, compose ourselves and just finish our scoring opportunities. We've worked on that all year-at times it's been there and at times it hasn't. We just need for it to be there this weekend."
The Cardinals, who won a school-record 13 games this season, earned a College Cup selection for the first time in program history. For the nine Blue Devil seniors, the fact that their spot in the tournament was up in the air was also a first. Duke had earned a College Cup bid for the past 12 years.
"Thinking we might not even get in, that was something that I haven't felt in my four years here," senior Sarah McCabe said. "It was scary, it was weird-it was almost embarrassing because I think that we have such a great program here. And to be not even in the postseason is something that I didn't want to have to say about my team."
Facing what could be their final game together this season, the Blue Devils are ready to show Louisville that, despite their season so far, they deserve a spot in the top 32.
"There's a lot of emotions, and we're just really excited to be able to play and play together one last time," senior captain Darby Kroyer said. "It's 90 minutes, and we're just going to leave it all out there and play our hardest."
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