Over the past couple of years, the Blue Devils have grown used to dealing with injuries.
With several of their top veteran players—including junior goalkeeper Mollie Mackler and redshirt junior Emma Hamm—missing most of the season last year, No. 4 Duke had to deal with changes in both its offensive and defensive play. This season has been no different.
Despite returning four starters, the Blue Devils (9-2, 2-1 in the ACC) have dealt with two other significant injuries. One of their losses on the defensive end was senior Caroline Spearman, who battled injuries all fall. The offense also lost veteran midfielder Sarah Bullard to a stress fracture.
“This has happened to us so frequently in the past few years that it doesn’t really faze us anymore,” said Bullard, who will return to action this weekend. “I think we’ve done an amazing job stepping up in the past few years to make up for what we’ve lost, and we’ve shown a lot of resilience.”
With the senior back for this weekend’s road matches against No. 14 Boston College (8-4, 1-3) Saturday and Brown (5-4) Sunday, the Blue Devils will have a more powerful offensive presence—Bullard led the team in goals last season—as well as increased senior leadership and higher morale.
“I’m really excited for Sarah, and I think any time you’ve had a First Team All-American player... who misses that much of the season, that’s a really tough thing to experience,” head coach Kerstin Kimel said. “It’s clearly not how she envisioned her senior year being, and we’re just trying to keep her expectations and our expectations very realistic. I’m not necessarily worried about how she’ll fit back in, and it’s more of her being comfortable and having the chance to ease back on to the field.”
Spearman’s return also bodes well for the Blue Devils. The senior, who played her first game in 11 months this past Saturday against No. 2 Northwestern, will help anchor Duke’s defensive effort.
“She’s one of our top returning defenders and she’s taken a couple of weeks to get back, but we’re excited that she’s an option for us now,” Kimel said. “Now, it’s up to us coaches to figure out how we can best utilize her.”
Both of the players are excited for this weekend’s contests and look forward to playing more minutes, especially after taking away a different perspective of the game from watching their team’s matches over the past couple of months.
“It’s very challenging to be on the sideline, but you have to work extra hard outside of practice to come back, and I’ve learned so much by watching,” Spearman said. “I’ve been working my way back into practice and I realized how much I miss it.”
And with these two players getting back into the rhythm of things, Duke will hope to come away from the weekend with two victories in two straight days.
“It’s exciting to have two games in a row, and it’s really going to help us prepare for playing the next game, fatigued and challenged to play just as hard as we did the day before,” Spearman said. “It’ll be great for the ACC Tournament coming up in the next couple of weeks.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.