CHAPEL HILL - Different place, different time, different weather-same result.
On a sweltering Sunday afternoon at the Carolina Classic in Chapel Hill, the No. 12 Blue Devils dropped a 3-1 decision to No. 5 Notre Dame, once again falling to the team that beat them 3-2 in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament on a frigid Indiana night last November.
Fresh off a momentum-building 3-1 win over Kentucky Friday night, Duke (4-1) kept pace with the high-powered Fighting Irish (5-0) for 65 minutes, but as the second half wore on, Notre Dame's wealth of offensive talent proved to be too much for the Blue Devils' back line to handle.
"We had some lapses, and when we had our lapses, they capitalized," head coach Robbie Church said.
Defensive miscues by Duke and persistent, physical attacks from the Fighting Irish led to Notre Dame's three second-half goals, a staggering total considering the Blue Devils had allowed just one goal all year prior to Sunday's matchup.
With the score knotted at one midway through the second half, Notre Dame midfielder Lauren Fowlkes gathered a deflected corner kick and curled a 15-yard strike past Duke goalkeeper Cassidy Powers to give Notre Dame the lead for good. Four minutes later, fellow midfielder Rebecca Mendoza pumped in a tally from the left edge of the box off a through ball from forward Michelle Weisenhoffer. Suddenly, a game in which the Blue Devils appeared to have a real chance of winning had now swung dramatically in the direction of Notre Dame, and Duke never recovered.
"Notre Dame is the most physical team we've played," Church said. "They made it very difficult for us to find a rhythm of play out there."
Senior midfielder Lorraine Quinn netted Duke's lone goal in the 60th minute, elevating above several Notre Dame defenders and heading a corner kick from midfielder Jane Alukonis into the top left corner of the net. After Quinn's pinpoint header, however, the Blue Devils failed to muster another serious scoring opportunity, as the Fighting Irish maintained possession in Duke's half for most of the rest of the game.
Although the teams combined to post 11 shots in the first half, neither team managed to break the scoreless deadlock until All-American Kerri Hanks, who scored the game-winning goal in the teams' NCAA tournament match last season, tapped in a cross to give Notre Dame a 1-0 lead just 69 seconds into the second half.
The first loss of their young season, while certainly disappointing, was not without a silver lining for the Blue Devils, who kept one of the nation's top teams on its heels before fading late.
"[Notre Dame is] probably the best team in the country, and I think that will probably show in the polls this year," Church said. "For us to be able to play with them as long as we did and really stay in the game is very encouraging."
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