Senior night will have a different sound to it for the Blue Devils Sunday.
Sophomore Kaitlyn Kerr and redshirt junior Ashley Rape—who will be honored as a senior with her classmates—will serenade the crowd with the national anthem before No. 6 Duke (14-2-1, 6-1-1 in the ACC) plays its final home game of the season against No. 15 Maryland (9-3-4, 3-3-2).
“I had a couple performances in high school,” Rape said of her singing experience. “Kaitlyn came along and had a great voice and we sounded great together. Kaitlyn had the idea so we just ran with it.”
Duke’s other three seniors—Chelsea Canepa, Molly Mack and Emily Nahas—along with redshirt senior Molly Lester, will have more on their minds then their teammates’ voices, though. Duke currently finds itself competing with North Carolina and Virginia for the important No. 1 seed in the ACC tournament, as all three teams are tied atop the conference standings with 19 points. A win against the Terrapins, with just one more ACC regular season game left, could help secure that accomplishment.
Getting shots past Maryland goalkeeper Yewande Balogun could be a challenge, though—the senior has posted eight shutouts on the year en route to a 0.67 goals against average and a .849 save percentage. Olivia Wagner leads the Terrapin attack with seven goals and 16 points on the season, both good for the team lead.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.