With a No. 2 seed in the ACC tournament and Tobacco Road bragging rights on the line, Duke missed its shot Friday night.
The No. 5 Blue Devils (11-4, 3-2 in the ACC) converted just 23.3 percent of their shots en route to a 9-7 loss to No. 4 North Carolina in Koskinen Stadium, falling to third place in the conference in their final ACC game.
"We put forth a really good effort," midfielder Sarah Bullard said. "Unfortunately we had a lot of chances that we didn't capitalize on, and I think that's what killed us."
A 25-minute scoring drought spanning both halves particularly doomed Duke. After falling behind 2-0 early on, the Blue Devils took a 5-3 lead with 11:30 remaining in the opening session. But Duke wouldn't strike again until midway through the second half.
The Blue Devils' Caroline Cryer, one of the team's most creative players, reinjured her ankle with 23 minutes remaining, and while she received treatment, the Tar Heels (13-3, 4-1) took advantage of their opponent's lull.
With Cryer out, North Carolina responded with three goals in six minutes. Duke was unable to maintain possession without Cryer, and conceded opportunities to the Tar Heels during that stretch.
"Caroline's obviously really pivotal on the draw for us," head coach Kerstin Kimel said. "She was out for a while, and we had a hard time controlling the ball off the draw and that gave them possession."
With her team down 7-5, Cryer-who leads the Blue Devils with 26 assists this season-returned to action and spurred the Duke comeback by assisting on goals to Carolyn Davis and Lindsay Gilbride. On each tally, Cryer was set behind the cage and found her teammates cutting in front of the goal for easy scores.
But easy scores were few and far between for Duke.
In the second half, Duke converted an abysmal 2-of-14 shots and came up empty on four free-position shots, despite converting half of those opportunities in the first half.
"There were times when we didn't particularly take the best shot, but I also think their goalie came up with some great saves," Kimel said. "We just could not finish our shots in the second half. Scoring two goals in any half is not good enough for us."
When North Carolina once again opened up a two-goal advantage, the Blue Devils were forced to move out of their comfort zone and play at a faster tempo to generate quick scores.
With just over a minute remaining, Duke missed a chance on a free-position shot when Tar Heel goalie Logan Ripley anticipated the Blue Devil cutter in front of the cage and intercepted the pass to regain possession for North Carolina. And with less than 30 seconds left in the contest, sophomore Caroline Spearman missed a point-blank shot in front of the goal when she was one-on-one with the goalie.
"We just didn't finish today. We even shoot 30 percent, we win the game today," Cryer said. "Credit to their goalie-she made some great saves... but we just didn't stick it."
The Blue Devils continued regular season play Sunday afternoon against Davidson and recovered well from the defeat Friday. Duke cruised to a 17-5 victory on the road, and opens ACC tournament play Thursday in Blacksburg, Va.
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