After the women's lacrosse team got off to a slow start during its home opener Sunday at Koskinen Stadium, freshman Michelle Menser led a comeback midway through the first half, lifting formerly disorganized Duke to a 15-9 victory over Northwestern (1-1).
The No. 4 Blue Devils (2-0) opened their season with an offensive flurry of 32 goals in two games, including a 17-4 win at UMBC Friday. In the matchup with Northwestern alone, four Blue Devils recorded hat tricks.
Menser was the catalyst, scoring a pair of goals when the Blue Devils trailed the Wildcats by three. Both tallies were unassisted and came fewer than four minutes apart.
"We just had to go out there and play our game," Menser said. "We were letting them play their game and just kind of adjusting to them. We just had to take control of the game and make [them] adjust to our style of play."
The Wildcats responded to the pair of Menser goals with two of their own, but after that the Blue Devil defense buckled down and held Northwestern scoreless for the final eight minutes of the half.
During the stretch, Duke collected four goals, including a pair by senior Corinne Broesler. She completed her hat trick by scoring on a free position shot just 26 ticks into the second half, giving her back-to-back three-goal performances on the weekend.
But Northwestern looked like it might hang with the Blue Devils in the second half. Jenny Bush stepped up for the Wildcats, scoring a pair of goals.
From there, the Blue Devil defense stifled any attack that the Wildcats could muster. Five consecutive Duke goals secured the win for head coach Kerstin Kimel's team.
"That is when we finally started to take off using our motion, using our grittiness and our hard work on the ground balls," Katie Chrest said. "That is when we started feel ourselves pulling away."
The Wildcat defense appeared tired and unable to deal with the diverse Blue Devil attack.
"We were able to really work the Northwestern defense and think the end result, our finishes, were great," Kimel said.
Duke also benefited from collecting the majority of the loose balls throughout the game. The Blue Devils were able to scoop up 25-of-34 ground balls and secured almost twice as many draws as their opponent.
"It just came down to getting the 50-50 balls," Chrest said. "The draws were a huge teller of who was going to come out on top."
Despite being face guarded for much of the game, Chrest, Duke's most prolific offensive weapon, recorded her second consecutive three-goal performance to begin her sophomore season.
"It is the first time I have had that [face guarding] on me since I have been at Duke," Chrest said. "It really opened up everybody else to get opportunities. I think I adapted by the end of the game, learned what was going to work and what wasn't."
Friday, the Blue Devils opened their season at UMBC. As was the case against Northwestern, Menser was a major offensive factor, scoring four goals in her first collegiate game. Highly-touted freshman Kristen Waagbo's career also got off to a hot start as she recorded three assists in each game this weekend and two tallies against UMBC.
The Blue Devils never trailed as Chrest put her team on top just one minute into the contest. During the second half, Duke overwhelmed UMBC offensively. The Blue Devils scored 11 unanswered goals to break open the contest and cruised to a season-opening victory.
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