Duke’s star captain Casey McCluskey took a feed from co-captain Carolyn Ford and arced a shot over the head of the Florida State goalkeeper to score the Blue Devils’ first goal of the night against a tough Florida State team.
Duke (10-2) continued its winning ways this weekend with decisive victories over ACC rivals Florida State (7-3) and Miami (2-6). The 16th-ranked Blue Devils’ defeat of the No. 9 Seminoles marks an important win for both ACC standings and NCAA tournament positioning.
“We’ve been playing really well,” head coach Robbie Church said. “Florida State is a great team, an NCAA Final Four team, a nationally ranked team. They’re going to win a lot of games and make a lot of noise on the national scene, but I didn’t want to change [our strategy] for them because we’re a very, very good team.”
Aggressive play by the Blue Devils’ offense facilitated the 2-0 win Friday. Duke maintained constant pressure on the Seminoles defense, keeping the ball on Florida State’s side of the field for the majority of the game. Despite only scoring once in the first half, the Blue Devils had seven shots on goal; the Seminoles had only two.
Duke continued to put pressure on the Florida State defense in the second half. Lauren Tippets capitalized on the offensive effort, drilling a cross from Carolyn Riggs over the head of the Seminoles goalkeeper and into the corner of the net for the Blue Devils’ second goal.
“We gave [FSU] a lot of respect at the beginning of the game because they did so well last year,” Tippets said. “The second half we knew we needed to get another goal because they were putting so much pressure on us. I think once we got the second goal, we could just sit back and play our game.”
Duke goalkeeper Allison Lipsher kept the Blue Devils’ seven-game shutout streak alive against Florida State with four saves, including a spectacular catch in the second half on a shot from close range. Friday’s game marked Lipsher’s fifth shutout of the season and Duke’s ninth, four shy of a school record.
“We’ve really been working in practice because we had a couple of rough games at the start,” said Lipsher. “The goalkeeper and the defense really weren’t communicating well, but we’ve worked on it a lot in practice, and it’s just all coming together.”
Duke continued its winning streak Sunday against Miami, despite falling behind 1-0 early in the game. Church attributed the Hurricanes’ early lead to the fact that their players were more rested than the Blue Devils, who were still recovering from Friday’s game. Junior Heidi Hollenbeck tied the score late in the half, however, and this goal proved to change the players’ attitudes going into the second period.
“It was important for our momentum that we tied the game before the half,” Church said. “We made a few substitutions at the second quarter, and the fresh legs really made a difference.”
After an evenly matched first half, Duke outplayed Miami in the second, outshooting the Hurricanes 13-2 and scoring three goals. Midfielder Carmen Bognanno, forward Sarah McCabe and midfielder Rebecca Moros all scored in the last 17 minutes of the game, earning the Blue Devils a 4-1 win.
Miami’s goal against keeper Kate Straka ended the Blue Devils’ school record shutout streak. McCluskey also failed to score in Sunday’s game, ending a school record six-game scoring streak. McCluskey did claim the number two spot on Duke’s all-time scoring list with her goal against Florida State, the 36th of her career.
This weekend’s wins move Duke into the third spot in ACC standings, behind Virginia and North Carolina. The Blue Devils play at Virginia next Saturday in another important conference contest.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.