After an easy win over Florida International Friday, the women's soccer team suffered an upsetting loss 2-1 to Marquette Sunday, allowing North Carolina to win the Duke Adidas Women's Soccer Classic.
Against the Marquette Golden Eagles, the Blue Devils started the game making some of the same mistakes they did in their Friday contest against FIU. The end result of a series of errors at the back was that the Duke defense allowed Marquette's Kate Gordon to put away a goal within the first ten minutes of play.
Marquette then continued to dominate Duke until the end of the first half, taking more shots, winning more headers and showing more overall aggression.
Despite head coach Robbie Church's best efforts to motivate his team during half-time, Marquette's Anne Ioder scored within the first four minutes of the second half and gave her team a 2-0 lead.
Duke continued its struggles until Freshman Carolyn Riggs netted a header off a cross by freshman Shelly Marshall with 21 minutes left in the game.
However, despite their frenzied attempts to muster a tie, Marquette held its 2-1 lead and broke the Blue Devils four-game winning streak.
"You can't play a quality team for only 20 minutes, and that's what we tried to do.... We threw away the other 70 minutes," Church said of the disappointing loss. "I give a lot of credit to Marquette. They made our life miserable."
Riggs, who scored Duke's only goal, denied that the team had become overconfident after Friday's win.
"Any team that you step onto the field with can beat you.... It all comes down to the effort you put out on the field," she said. "When we give our best, we are better than any team we could ever play against."
On Friday night at Koskinen Stadium, Duke defeated Florida International 5-0.
For the first 25 minutes of the game, the Blue Devils had trouble connecting with each other and were unable to take advantage of their opportunities. Then, with 19 minutes left in the first half, Riggs scored two quick goals giving Duke a 2-0 lead going into the second half.
The Blue Devils' aggression then improved in the second half as Duke tossed in three more scores before the end of the game. Lauren Simel and Carolyn Ford scored within three minutes of each other and Gwendolyn Oxenham ended Duke's barrage of goals, netting one with 10 minutes left in the game. Oxenham, a junior, said she was happy with her team's change of pace and that "the momentum picked up in the second half after Robbie made some changes."
Church said he was pleased with his team's performance but admitted to having some fears about the slow start and lack of aggression. Duke took a total of 26 shots that game and Church stressed the importance of being able to convert those chances into goals.
"We're taking too many shots and not getting enough goals," he said.
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