The 15th-ranked Blue Devils were coming off a massive win against Virginia Tech Saturday and it was clear from the beginning all the momentum was with Duke—star sophomore attacker Charlotte North scored less than two minutes into the contest and the Blue Devils never looked back.
For the second straight game, Duke played at Cohan Fields, rather than its regular homesite of Koskinen Stadium. It was cold, wet, and dreary but the team looked anything but. After struggling offensively in the contest against Virginia Tech, the Blue Devils came out firing, scoring 11 straight in less than 17 minutes—matching the number of goals they scored against the Hokies last Saturday. For 14 of those 17 minutes, Duke held the Tribe without a single shot.
“We felt like we took ourselves out of the way we play on Saturday,” Blue Devil head coach Kerstin Kimel said. “We had a couple quick turnovers early Saturday that I think we let affect our confidence instead of just trying to push through and today, you know, our goal was to come out and play, offensively in particular, the way we’re capable of playing. And I think that’s what you saw. We didn’t really let the weather impact us at all.”
Duke’s lead was never in question during this game, but William & Mary (2-2) was able to hold them scoreless for nearly 13 minutes towards the end of the first half, while tacking on two goals of its own, shrinking the Blue Devil lead to 11-2. But then Duke’s senior midfielder Ellie Majure responded with a goal of her own with just over a minute to play in the half, bringing Duke’s lead back to 10 at 12-2.
“Ellie, being a senior that’s super composed, I was not surprised at all that she was able to give us that edge going into halftime,” Kimel said. “At halftime we really just wanted mentality-wise to come out like the score was nothing-nothing, that we didn’t have the lead we had and just go.”
And go they did—the Blue Devils (4-1) opened the second half scoring six straight before the Tribe was able to tack on another. Duke scored once more in the contest, for a final score of 19-3. After a first half that saw the Blue Devils and the Tribe break close to even at the draw, Duke dominated in the second half, winning all nine draw controls.
For a match that looked noncompetitive most of the way through, it was the details that stood out for the Blue Devils. Just a few games ago, North broke her own record for points in a game with 11 and, early on, it looked like she would break it again, quickly tallying five goals and two assists in Duke’s opening 11-0 run. She entered the day 10 points short of 100 for her career and she got within one, tallying seven goals and two assists on the day.
Senior Olivia Jenner joined North in notching a hat trick —both were recently named to the Tewaaraton Award Watch List, the award for the top male and female college lacrosse players in the U.S.
In a season that has seen Duke score 19 or more goals in four out of five contests, the defense is often overlooked. Despite this, it was stellar Friday, holding William & Mary to their lowest scoring output of the season. The Tribe entered the contest as a top-five team in caused turnovers, averaging 15.33 per game. But it was the Blue Devils that ended the day top in this category, causing 15 turnovers compared to William & Mary’s five.
“Defensively our whole plan was to play really disciplined and let them make their own mistakes, which ultimately they did,” Kimel said. “They ran into us, they bumbled the ball, they dropped passes. We didn’t really go for a ton of checks inside, we hardly put them on the 8 meter, those were big parts of our goal today - to just play really disciplined. Let them make their own mistakes.”
The Blue Devils face a quick turn around and will play Elon Sunday at 1 p.m. in Elon, N.C. at Rudd Field. It’ll be the sixth meeting between the two, with Duke holding the 4-1 series lead. The Devils beat Elon 17-9 last year in their season opener.
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