CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — After 60 minutes of play, the outlook was bleak for Duke against No. 1 Notre Dame. The Blue Devils trailed 1-0 after allowing a fluke goal in the first half, and to add injury to insult one of their captains—Ashley Rape—had just been carted off the field with a right knee injury.
But just when it looked like Duke was in a position to shut down, it turned up the pressure on the defending national champions.
No. 21 Duke (4-0) scored three unanswered goals in under 12 minutes during the final third of the game to knock off the Fighting Irish (2-2) with a bittersweet 3-1 victory Sunday afternoon in the Carolina Nike Classic at Fetzer Field. The win was Church’s 300th of his career as both a men’s and women’s collegiate head coach.
Sophomore Laura Weinberg gave the team the boost it needed when she netted the equalizer with just over 27 minutes to go, rifling a laser past Notre Dame freshman goalkeeper Sarah Voigt from the left side of the goal.
“We needed that first goal to give us the energy,” Duke head coach Robbie Church said. “Once we got the first I knew we were going to get a couple more because that just took us to a new level.”
The Blue Devils hardly finished celebrating Weinberg’s goal when freshman Kelly Cobb netted the biggest score of her young career. Cobb collected the ball just past midfield, turned on her defender and took off down the right sideline. She cut in past another defender, took a touch out to her left to gain space at the top of the penalty area and fired it high past Voigt to give Duke a lead it would not relinquish.
“[Cobb’s] still not at full strength,” Church said. “She’s been hurt for a lot of the preseason and she’s been running herself back into fitness. She’s a warrior and she played hard.... She’s just a big time player.”
After Cobb’s dominant display, senior Chelsea Canepa knocked home a deflected ball with 16 minutes to play to create some insurance for the Blue Devils.
The offensive outburst in the final period was a stark contrast to a back-and-forth first half that saw the Blue Devils trail for the first time this season. The two squads traded opportunities but neither could find the back of the net until Brynn Gerstle blocked a clearance attempt by Duke goalkeeper Tara Campbell. Campbell tried to send the ball away from trouble after defender Libby Jandl passed it back to her, but the ball struck Gerstle in the head at just the right angle to deflect back towards goal, and trickle into the side netting as Campbell and Maddy Haller hustled back in pursuit.
Although they trailed at the half, Church maintained a positive atmosphere in the Duke locker room.
“The girls were determined that kind of goal wasn’t going to beat us,” Church said. “That was just a crazy goal that it happens like that, to give up your first goal of the year. You could see at halftime that we were fine, the kids were fine and as [Notre Dame coach Randy Waldrum] said, we were the better team on the day from the opening whistle.”
The turning point for the Blue Devils came when Rape went down with 35 minutes remaining. As she chased a Fighting Irish forward into the corner to the right of the goal, she collapsed near the top of the penalty area, clutching her right knee. Church said she won’t be able to get the knee examined thoroughly until the swelling goes down, but expressed concern over the severity of the injury for a player with a history of knee injuries.
“Ashley is the heart and soul of our team in the back,” Church said. “She’s put her life into our program being here for four years, so obviously our thoughts and prayers go out to her and her family.”
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