Duke’s hot start came to an abrupt end Sunday.
Despite leaping out to a 2-0 lead, the Blue Devils fell to No. 20 Florida 3-2 when Gator midfielder Erika Tymrak, a senior, slotted the golden goal off a give-and-go just three minutes into overtime at Fetzer Field in Chapel Hill, N.C.
“We fell too far off of them defensively,” head coach Robbie Church said. “We gave them too much room. We gave them too much space. We didn’t track some players. And they did the little winning things as they fought back. They got the tying goal off of us, and then they made the play in overtime.”
No. 1 Duke (2-1-0) entered the game having outscored its regular season opponents 12-1, not including the team’s 5-1 exhibition win against Montreal in its first game in the UNC Nike Classic. The Blue Devils wasted no time adding to that tally to close out its Classic schedule against Florida.
Within 10 minutes of the opening whistle, Duke opened the scoring. Junior midfielder Gilda Doria—taking the feed from team points leader and center forward Kim DeCesare, a redshirt junior—scored from 20 yards out into the lower right corner of the goal.
“We came out strong,” Doria said. “Our team was really hyped up before the game.”
The strike marked Doria’s second goal of the season and was one of a game-high three shots on goal for the midfielder.
“[Doria’s] being much more dangerous,” Church said. “She’s getting deeper. She’s creating more goals, shots and opportunities.”
Maintaining the possession, the Blue Devils offense increased its lead. In the 29th minute, freshman forward Cassie Pecht picked up a loose ball on the left wing and netted a 20-yard goal for her second score of the season.
Pecht’s goal put Duke up 2-0, but as both teams inserted several reserves into the game, the one-sided possession that had characterized the first 30 minutes of the game did not last.
The Gators (1-1-1) soon racked up a number of their own offensive chances. With just more than six minutes remaining in the half, Florida’s Havana Solaun slipped a through ball around the Blue Devil back line, finding fellow substitute Jillian Graff in the center of the box. With a quick finishing touch, Graff gave the Gators life, bringing the deficit back to one.
“We started out great. We played really well, but they never gave up,” Church said. “The goal at the end of the half was a huge goal for them—to put it 2-1. At that point, that got them momentum.”
Coming out of halftime, Duke returned all of its starters. The team did not, however, find the same level of offensive play that it possessed to start the first half.
“I was disappointed with how we responded in the second half a little bit,” Church said. “We had a chance to stop. We had a chance to regroup.”
Although no Gators registered a shot on goal in the half, Florida’s pressure soon put it back in the game. In the 65th minute, Tymrak fired a cross into Duke’s 18-yard box that ricocheted off Blue Devil senior midfielder Nicole Lipp’s back and into the goal.
“I think we just had a letdown after we had scored those two goals,” center back Natasha Anasi, a junior, said. “When we have those kinds of lapses, goals are going to slip in, and if we have mental lapses they’re going to punish us for those…. They did a really good job—credit to them—to punish us with those chances, getting behind, and they never quit playing the entire time they were out there.”
Although its 2-0 lead had evaporated, Duke continued to rack up opportunities in the offensive third. The Blue Devils outshot the Gators 7-4 in the second half, and despite putting a number of crosses off target, Duke held a 10-4 advantage in corner kicks.
One of those set pieces almost gave the Blue Devils the lead back as a cross found Lipp open at the far post. The midfielder’s volley, however, sailed over the goal.
“We had chances to make plays,” Church said. “We didn’t make plays. We served a lot of balls to goalkeepers. We served a lot of balls behind the goal. It’s a disappointing loss. You can’t be up 2-0 and give a game away like this. We have to battle back. We have to keep playing the full 90 minutes.”
With the score tied at two to close regulation, the game went to its first period of sudden-victory overtime. All but one of Duke’s starters returned to the field, with senior left back Maddy Haller leaving the game due to dehydration.
The Blue Devils’ chance to take the game back was short-lived, however. In the fourth minute, Tymrak led a counter-attack, drawing three Duke defenders to the middle of the field. The midfielder passed to senior forward McKenzie Barney, who returned the favor and found Tymrak in traffic for the game winner.
The three goals allowed marked the highest total for the program since Oct. 28, 2010, when Duke lost 5-3 against North Carolina.
“We can’t give up this many goals,” Church said. “We’ve got to be a better defensive team. We should not give up three goals. We cannot give up three goals, and we gave up three goals.”
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