It was high noon and the sun was shining brightly over the West Campus Turf Fields. It was a beautiful day for a lacrosse match.
Yale broke its pre-game huddle with its standard "Bring it" cheer, which they did so early in the match.
The No. 14 Bulldogs (9-3) jumped out to a 2-0 lead only 70 seconds into the contest, as sophomore sensation Amanda Walton scored 54 seconds in and Kate Flatley added a goal 16 seconds later. Still, it wasn't enough as fourth-ranked Duke (9-3) settled down and cruised to a 17-4 victory.
The Bulldogs entered Saturday's contest desperately needing a win to keep their rapidly fading NCAA hopes on life support. But incredible performances by sophomores Kate Kaiser and Kristen Foster, coupled with the Blue Devils' great team speed, did Yale in and likely will send it to the ECAC tournament for the second consecutive year.
Kristen Foster started her sixth game between the pipes and went the distance for Duke. Foster shut down the Bulldogs' normally high-powered offense, holding them almost nine goals under their average. Two of Yale's goals came on free position shots from close range, and the other two came on breakaways in the first 1:10 of the game.
One clear indication of how much the Bulldogs struggled to score came with about 20 minutes remaining in the game. Walton, the 1999 Ivy League rookie of the year, flipped a behind-the-back pass to Flatley, who found herself just a few feet from Foster with no other defenders around. But Foster stopped Flatley's shot, and the Yale bench looked at each other in dismay and bewilderment.
"[Foster] played a tremendous game," Yale coach Amanda O'Leary said. "Duke's defense was fabulous. They did a great job. They shut down our attackers without any question. I was really impressed with them as a whole."
Offensively, Kaiser paced the Duke attack with five goals. With Yale leading 3-2 early in the first half, Kaiser broke free at the eight to tie the score with 26:13 left in the half.
Less than a minute later at the 25:30 mark, she gave Duke its first lead, 4-3, and the Blue Devils never trailed again. Her play earned her praise from O'Leary.
"I think Kate Kaiser is the best lacrosse player I've seen," she said. "She's a defensive star and incredibly hard to stop on the offensive end. If I had to pick their best player, I would pick her. She's a threat on both ends of the field."
Although O'Leary only recently discovered Kaiser, Duke has known all along what she is capable of.
"She's such a complete player," Duke coach Kerstin Kimel said. "If we need her to be more offensive, she can do that for us and she can score. If we need her to really shut down a girl, she can do that as well. I think that it's very rare that a coach has a luxury of a player who can do everything.
"You can compare her to Chris Carrawell-someone who can score but is capable of shutting down the top players in the country."
The Blue Devils also enjoyed an advantage in overall speed, something that is crucial to success.
Duke's superior speed allowed it to obtain a sizable ground ball advantage, as well as create additional scoring opportunities. Their speed also enabled the Blue Devils to eliminate several of Yale's transition opportunities.
While every team in the ACC boasts numerous athletes who could double as track stars, most Ivy League teams are not accustomed to such speed and it has caused several of those teams problems when they have headed south.
"[Duke] is really fast," Walton said. "And their doubles are great. This is probably the fastest team we've ever seen."
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