The second half wasn't even a minute old, and the women's soccer team was already tightening the lasso on the unsuspecting Texas Longhorns.
The ball hovering in mid-air and lost somewhere between the mist and Koskinen Stadium's buzzing Sunday night lights, the Longhorn defenders turned their heads as the ball bent towards the goal. Duke sophomore Carolyn Riggs was following her arcing shot, and her teammates were racing fast enough to make their sweating hair braids seem more like 11 swaying pendulums.
Riggs' ball came back down to earth just beyond the goalie's reach and into the back of the net, tying No. 24 Duke's matchup against No. 4 Texas at 2-2. Senior Gwendolyn Oxenham would send in the eventual game-winning goal 20 minutes later, as the Blue Devils finally toppled a top-ten team, hooking the Longhorns, 3-2.
"It's amazing," Oxenham said following a jumping, screeching team celebration at game's end. "After having three years of coming so close and always losing at the end, not being able to hold out and finish the game off, to actually put it away this time was incredible. And we might be a very young team, but we definitely showed that we're tough enough to close it out."
Texas took hold of the game early, when Duke keeper Thora Helgadottir had a goal kick returned to her zone almost instantaneously. She came out to snatch up the ball, but a pass into the box found the foot of Longhorn freshman Nikki Thaden, who scooted it past Helgadottir for the game's first score at 7:13.
But the Blue Devils responded with a swarming defense and several scrums in the box, including one in the 19th minute that saw Duke miss twice when the goalie jumped out of position and left a Texas defender fending for herself. Then once head coach Robbie Church substituted Riggs and freshman Rebecca Moros into the game, it was the Blue Devils driving the herd.
Moros streaked into the box and received two crossing passes--one from Riggs--but missed both of her open shots. With four minutes remaining in the first half, Riggs set up freshman Darby Kroyer all alone just outside the box, and Kroyer booted a low liner into the back left of the net for what Church called a "brilliant goal."
"I think it's part of a mix of youth and veteran, older players, because we kept the level of intensity level for a longer period of time than we did last year," said Church, who won his first game against a top-ten team after losses to No. 1 North Carolina and No. 8 Penn State in 2001, and then a tie with No. 2 UNC after last season's loss to then-No. 5 Texas. "We wouldn't have won this game last year; we would've been up but given it back away. That's the maturation of our players. We still have to work on some in-game situations, but it's early."
After a first half in which Duke outshot Texas 7-2, it was early in the final stanza when Riggs bent it like Beckham past Longhorn goalie Alex Gagarin, giving Duke a 2-1 lead. It was the third goal of the weekend for Riggs--she had two in two minutes during the Blue Devils' 6-0 win in Friday's season opener over Campbell--but she could have had more.
Streaking down the right sideline in the 62nd minute, she sent a touch pass to Casey McCluskey, who tapped a soft shot to the right side. Gagarin dove to save it, but Riggs put in the rebound for what seemed like Duke's third goal. But after an emphatic celebration, the referee called offsides, nullifying the goal and prompting Church to bark from the sidelines, "You better be right! You better!"
Riggs, on a role, remained optimistic.
"Soccer is unpredictable," she said, "and I think that more than anything I'm happy that the entire team could step it up and that we didn't need it. Last year, I feel like if that goal wouldn't have gone in it would have been a lot more disappointing. But of course it is; it was ridiculous. It came off the keeper, and there's no way it could've been offsides."
Oxenham, though, gave Duke some much-needed breathing room when she deflected a crossing shot past Gagarin, whose outstretched arms were too short once more. Oxenham was glowing after what was just her eighth career goal ended up being the game winner.
Her goal became more pressing in the 78th minute when Kelly McDonald, who was single-handedly pushing the Texas offense all evening, backpedalled to reel in a pass that she had just overran and rolled it past Helgadottir, bringing the Longhorns within one.
But the Blue Devils were too on last night, too busy not getting caught in the stadium lights to be intimidated by one of those teams they could never beat. They swallowed up McDonald and the desperate Texas offense, only to clear the ball repeatedly and, with the final horn, step right up into the national spotlight.
"I think our team just has a much better winning mentality," McCluskey said. "We just get a lot more pumped for games since we're so much more confident, even though we're young. I think last year we came in as an underdog, and this time we came in definitely expecting to win.
"As far as a team goes, that was the best team we've ever beaten."
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