The second-ranked field hockey team begins its run at the national title with an opening-round game against sixth-seed Virginia (8-10, 0-5 ACC) in the ACC Tournament.
The Blue Devils (14-3, 3-2) head into today's 4 p.m. game in College Park, Md. as the third seed in the tournament because of two costly losses to No. 1 Wake Forest and No. 3 Maryland. Regardless, head coach Beth Bozman is confident in her team's ability to win the title.
"Whoever brings their A-game and makes the fewest mistakes is the team that is going to win this weekend," Bozman said. "There are four teams that could win on any given day but I do think that we have a really talented group. I think we are really coming together and have been playing some great hockey and we want to keep moving forward."
Three-time defending national champion Wake Forest enters the tournament looking to avenge last season's ACC Tournament loss to North Carolina. Wake has defeated Duke in the national title game the past two years and is the favorite to advance to the finals.
Wake and Maryland have first-round byes. The Demon Deacons will play the winner of No. 5 UNC and No. 13 Boston College in the second round. The Terps face the winner of the Duke and Virgina game.
In its three losses this year, Duke's problem has been finishing on offense. Against Maryland, the Blue Devils out shot the Terps 25-8, but were unable to find the net, losing 2-0. Duke was also stifled by Wake in an early season matchup, losing 2-1 with nine shots on goal.
"We are a different team now than we were when we played those two teams," Bozman said. "I think we have finally gotten our offensive act together and we have been finishing a lot more recently- When you are playing teams like Wake and Maryland and UNC, one mistake is the difference in the game. We have to play a really tight game and capitalize on our scoring opportunities."
Duke will look to seniors Nicole Dudek and Katie Grant for an offensive spark. Dudek is second on the team in points and was recently named a member of the South Senior All-Star team. Grant, Duke's all-time leading scorer, was named ACC Offensive Player of the Year at the conference's post-season awards banquent, held Wednesday night in College Park. The senior forward had four goals and three assists in two games last weekend, bringing her career total to 202 points and breaking Melissa Panasci's eight-year-old Duke record of 200.
"We've been doing a good job finishing since those two games and we are going to have to keep focusing on doing that," said Grant. "I definitely want to make sure I play the best I can because I want to end my career on the best note."
Senior goalie Christy Morgan missed part of the season due to a chronic back injury but sophomore Caitlin Williams stepped in and posted an impressive 0.86 goals against average and a record of 7-1. Bozman has named Morgan the starter going into the playoffs, but Williams has proved to be a more than capable backup.
"Christy is our starting goalkeeper right now," Bozman said. "Caitlin has been exceptional-I think we are faced with a situation where we have two great goalkeepers and so we just had to make a decision about which to start."
The ACC Tournament title game will be played Nov.5 at 12 p.m. and will be televised on FSN South.
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