But when it’s mattered most, the Blue Devils have had little issue finding the back of the net. Though three NCAA tournament games, Duke has faced elimination by penalty shootout twice, and both times, the Blue Devils handled the pressure to advance.
“[Head coach Robbie Church has] done a very good job in that we’ve been practicing this for a really long time,” said junior forward Kelly Cobb, who clinched the victory in both games as Duke’s fifth shooter. “Every PK-taker who steps up has the confidence to… put it away.”
Duke faced its first penalty shootout in the first round on the road against Colorado College Nov. 16. After playing 110 minutes to a 1-1 tie, the Blue Devils switched goalkeepers for the shootout, putting redshirt sophomore Ali Kershner in the cage for redshirt junior Meghan Thomas.
Although Duke fell behind when junior Katie Trees could not get her attempt by Tiger goalie Kate Scheele, Kershner brought the Blue Devils back into the contest by saving the two last attempts from Colorado College and helping Duke to a 4-3 shootout win.
“[Kershner’s] very explosive,” Church said. “She spends a lot of time in the weight room. She’s athletic… and she can read the kicks well. We saw that in practice against our own players.”
Two weeks later, in the Round of 16, Kershner and her team found themselves back in the same high-pressure situation after giving up a 2-1 lead to Arkansas Sunday and heading to another shootout.
“We were more confident, especially after winning the last one,” Cobb said. “Once I saw [senior Mollie Pathman] go up there for the first one, I knew she was going to put it away.”
Pathman, a forward-turned-defender whose only two goals on the season came on penalty kicks in September, calmly put away her shot just as she did against the Tigers a week earlier, setting the tone for a 5-3 shootout victory.
But the senior did not always feel comfortable as the Blue Devils’ go-to kick taker from the 12-yard hash.
To get to that point, she first learned about mental aspects of penalty-kick taking through an independent study project she undertook last fall with the help of Dr. Greg Dale, Duke’s Director of Sport Psychology and Leadership Programs.
Pathman had previously felt uncomfortable volunteering to step up and take penalty kicks but pursued the project so that she could become a more valuable player to her team, Dale noted, and with Dale’s help, Pathman came to take a different attitude toward the opportunity.
“The pressure is really ultimately within yourself. It’s all on your interpretation of a particular situation,” Dale said. “If you view it as threatening, or if you view it as an opportunity to… let other people down, then you’re more likely to feel that pressure in a negative way, perhaps get a little more uptight and nervous and then not be able to perform well, but if you interpret it as a great opportunity and you embrace it and look forward to it… that leads to being relaxed and aggressive and confident, and can make a big difference for you.”
Through her project, Pathman developed a routine and came to embrace the opportunity of scoring the penalty tries, Dale said. And she has made sure to carry that mindset into her performance on the field.
“Once she established that mindset, it really freed her up,” Dale said.
Pathman’s teammates have shown similar calm demeanors with the game on the line. Dale pointed to Cobb’s attitude of it just being something she’s done many times before as a prime example of how to take a kick.
Because regular season games do not proceed to a shootout and instead end as draws if tied after two overtimes, Pathman, Cobb and her teammates do not regularly practice the shootout scenario until later in the year.
"It comes in focus in October, but I think we start a little bit earlier than a lot of people,” Church said. “We start a couple of weeks before the conference [tournament] starts. When you start getting to 16 teams and eight, there’s not much difference between these teams, so it may come down to PKs so we start [early]… so they’re comfortable.”
So far, the Blue Devils’ preparation has paid off as they have converted on 9-of-10 tries to send the team into a quarterfinal match against No. 1 seed Virginia Tech.
In the regular season matchup, neither team could find a way to break the 1-1 stalemate before the game clock ran out. Like the Blue Devils, Virginia Tech also made it through the Round of 16 by winning a shootout.
If the match Friday takes a similar route, Pathman and her teammates will be ready.
“I have complete faith in our team. I’m relaxed going into [penalty kicks],” she said. “The whole team—we calm each other down. And it’s nice to have your best friends’ arms around you knowing they’re supporting you regardless of how the game goes.”
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