The Blue Devils ended the regular season with a sour taste in their mouths thanks to a home loss to rival North Carolina that cost them the regular-season ACC title.
They made sure to come out with a vengeance in their postseason debut Thursday.
Second-seeded Duke doubled up seventh-seeded Louisville 14-7 in the ACC tournament quarterfinals at in Charlottesville, Va., at Klöckner Stadium, topping the Cardinals for the second time this season. Senior Kerrin Maurer and junior Maddy Acton posted hat tricks to fuel the Blue Devil offense and senior Brigid Smith dished out four assists, tying a career high.
“It’s hard to beat a really good team twice, and I think Louisville is super, especially on the draw," Duke head coach Kerstin Kimel said. "What we wanted today was our kids to bounce back from the not-so-great performance against North Carolina last week, and I think we did just that. They just did a really good job of sticking to our game plan.”
The final result might imply an easy victory for Duke (14-2), but it needed a dominant second half against Louisville (10-7) to secure a berth in the tournament semifinals.
Senior midfielder Katie Trees broke the deadlock with an unassisted goal 88 seconds after the opening faceoff, but the Cardinals responded promptly with a 3-0 run to turn the game around.
Quicky down two goals, the Blue Devils regrouped and answered with a 5-0 run of their own. Acton’s unassisted score and senior Taylor Trimble’s tally from freshman Kyra Harney tied the game 3-3 with 13:08 to play in the first half.
In a seven-minute span, three upperclassmen—Smith, Acton and Trimble—beat Louisville goalkeeper Ashley Peacock to give the lead back to Duke. The No. 3 squad in the country did not look back for the rest of the contest. The Blue Devils allowed two goals before the halftime horn but still went into the locker room with a 6-4 lead.
A free-position goal made Hannah Kolowski interesting 1:24 into the second half made things interesting, but Louisville couldn’t respond to another dominant Duke run. Freshman midfielder Maddie Crutchfield scored an unassisted goal and Smith fed senior midfielder Erin Tenneson to extend Duke’s lead to 8-5 in a three-minute span. With 19:52 to play, Acton notched her third goal of the day on a free-position shot and Maurer found the back of the net off an assist from junior attacker Emma Lazaroff just a few minutes later.
“Our defense was so sharp in terms of limiting them,” Kimel said. “We gave up a couple of sloppy looks at the beginning of the game, but then we tightened up and limited them, especially their top scorers. Tournament time is tough, it’s a tough time of year for us academically and our kids are really focused right now.”
Louisville made one last comeback bid with a pair of scores by Cortnee Daley and Carissa Corbet to cut Duke’s lead to 10-7. But four Blue Devil seniors made sure the Cardinals would come no closer.
Midfielder Chelsea Landon scored an unassisted shot with 4:36 left and Smith facilitated Trees’ second tally of the clash one minute later. In the last fifty seconds of the contest, Maurer—the team’s top striker with 34 goals this campaign—added two more scores to secure the 14-7 final victory.
Junior goalkeeper and All-ACC honoree Kelsey Duryea only registered five saves, but several came at critical junctures. The Beverly, Mass., native blocked a shot close to the end of the opening period, preventing Louisville to go to the locker room just one goal behind.
“We played really gritty and collectively as a unit, and I think that is so important in tournament play,” sophomore defender Isabelle Montage told GoDuke.com. “Moving forward to tomorrow, we just want to keep that going and fuel off the confidence from our win today. It was a total team effort.”
The Blue Devils will battle sixth-seeded Syracuse Friday at 3 p.m. for the right to play for the conference tournament crown Sunday afternoon.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.