Halfway through the first frame, already down 3-1, senior attacker Katie DeSimone somehow found some space in front of the crease among the physical Notre Dame defense. Her teammate was able to thread the ball through the sea of white jerseys to DeSimone’s island. But in a rare slip-up, the St. Anthony’s product fumbled the opportunity, failing to cleanly receive the pass and letting the Fighting Irish scoop up the ball and clear it with ease.
Despite the opening score and numerous offensive opportunities, the 23rd-ranked Blue Devils were no match for No. 6 Notre Dame and its trio of star graduate attackers. Duke fell in South Bend, Ind., 19-7 after allowing six goals in the first quarter.
The Blue Devils (9-6, 3-4 in the ACC) won the opening draw, but a high pass ended their offensive start with the shot clock still at 30 seconds. The Fighting Irish (11-2, 5-2) got the ball on cage, but redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Kennedy Everson nabbed the high stick save and dumped it back out to her teammates. Duke wound the shot clock down again, and with just seconds remaining freshman Bella Goodwin lobbed it over the pipes, right into graduate attacker Caroline DeBellis’ outstretched stick for the point-blank one-timer. In their second top-10 matchup in seven days, head coach Kirsten Kimel’s Blue Devils seemed ready to go.
All that opening score did, however, was spark the Notre Dame offense. It won the next three draws and scored thrice in less than 90 seconds. The first was by Abby Maichin as she split two defenders for the cross-body shot. On the next, Kasey Choma hit Madison Ahern on the drive, who powered straight through the eight-meter and fired an overhand shot past Everson. When Jackie Wolak came around the back of the crease and took the shot herself from just up from goal-line extended, the game already felt out of reach for the visitors, even with just more than six minutes off the clock. By the midway point in the third quarter, with an 11-goal lead, the Fighting Irish were dancing on the sidelines.
In the second period, after a Choma free-position shot hit the post and graduate midfielder Olivia Carner corralled the rebound, Duke got to work. The graduate midfielder raced through the middle third herself and the offense got set up. Junior attacker Carly Bernstein fed DeSimone, who held onto it this time, and the NCAA goals and points leader faked the forehand before whipping the ball behind her right shoulder and past Callahan for the highlight-reel goal, her 55th of the year. She scored twice more for her 11th hat trick this season, the Blue Devils’ only multi-goal scorer on the day.
Offensive success was few and far between. Graduate defender Olivia Dooley led the lockdown of the Blue Devil offense, helping cause 11 turnovers while holding the oft-potent attackers to just 17 shots. Duke struggled to penetrate the eight-meter, taking nearly every shot clock low if it was able to retain possession that long.
Everson notched her ninth-consecutive start, but faced a nearly impossible task in stopping the fifth-ranked scoring offense in the country. The Fighting Irish’s “big three,” graduate students Wolak, Ahern and Choma, are each over 40 points thus far on the season, and ate on their senior day. They combined for seven of Notre Dame’s 11 first-half goals and each totalled hat tricks. Senior Maichin and graduate student Arden Tierney also hit that three-goal mark in their last game in South Bend.
The Blue Devils return home for their own senior day Friday afternoon against Louisville.
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Rachael Kaplan is a Trinity junior and sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 119th volume.