Freshman Olivia Jenner grew up just 10 minutes from Navy-Marine Corps Stadium, and seemed to feel right at home Friday afternoon.
Jenner won 13 of 29 draws and added two goals and two assists as the No. 5 Blue Devils doubled up Navy 18-9 in Annapolis, Md., to claim their first road win of the season. In a game that was moved up one day due to forecasted extreme temperatures, senior Kelci Smesko and sophomore Kyra Harney led the way for Duke with a combined 10 goals, set up by Jenner's success on the draw.
“[Jenner] is an Annapolis girl, and I think you always worry about freshmen in their first hometown game," Duke head coach Kerstin Kimel told GoDuke.com. "She stepped up to the plate today and did a great job on the draw and scoring goals for us, as well.”
The Blue Devils (2-1) jumped out to a quick 5-2 lead behind two goals from Harney and a hat trick from Smesko, who ended up with a career-high six goals for the game. In the first 15 minutes, Jenner secured eight draws and scored from the eight-meter mark, and senior goalkeeper Kelsey Durya recorded six saves and shut out the Mids (2-1) for more than 12 minutes near the end of the first half.
Navy sophomore midfielder Sarah Childress finally got a shot past Durya with 16 seconds remaining to trim the Mids’ deficit to 8-5, but sophomore Maddie Crutchfield countered with a free position goal just before time expired to bring Duke’s lead to 9-5 at halftime.
“I think obviously we really respect Navy, and their players and their program and their systems," Kimel said. "We’re very happy too that we were able to score well. Navy kept changing things up on us defensively, so we were very happy that our kids really adapted well to that as the game went on and we scored in different ways.”
Following another goal by the Blue Devils, the Mids found the back of the net twice to cut the margin to three. But Smesko responded with her fifth score of the contest—converting on a man-up opportunity—and assisted junior midfielder Stuart Humphrey on a goal. Sophomore midfielder Jackie Perry later added her first goal of the season.
“Last weekend, we were shut out on the eight-meter [arc],” Kimel said. “I think we were like 0-for-7 or something like that, and that is not acceptable for any team of our caliber. We worked on that a lot this week, thinking that because we have to be better, you can’t be 0-for-7. Obviously that was great for us.”
Harney and Smesko closed out the win with one goal each in the final six minutes. With that final goal, Smesko had nine points on the day and became the 24th player in program history to reach 100 points for her career. Smesko accomplished the feat despite missing all of last season due to injury,
The new-look Blue Devils—who feature 12 freshmen on their roster—will travel to Costa Mesa, Calif., to take on Southern California next weekend at the US Lacrosse Orange County Winter Invitational. Duke will attempt to build a winning streak that can continue into ACC play, which begins March 12 with a match against Virginia Tech.
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Jacob Weiss is a Trinity senior. His column, "not jumping to any conclusions," runs on alternate Fridays.