Duke women's lacrosse looks to end two-game skid

After back-to-back losses, the Blue Devils will look to rebound when they take on Georgetown.

The No. 14 Hoyas come to town fresh off an overtime victory against then-No. 19 Princeton Saturday. When Georgetown faces off against Duke at Koskinen Stadium at 5 p.m. Wednesday, the No. 6 Blue Devils must correct their mistakes following a poor defensive performance against then-No. 3 Maryland Saturday.

After the Terrapins drubbed Duke on its home turf 19-10, the Blue Devils need a signature home victory as it nears the midpoint of the season. Maryland scored at will against the Blue Devil defense—it rattled off two separate runs of five or more unanswered goals—something head coach Kerstin Kimel knows cannot happen again if they want to be contenders in the long run.

"The biggest thing that we struggled with against Maryland was that we weren't organized out of transition, and that's something that's really fundamental, and that was something that was really hard for the girls to look at on film and say, 'We know better,'" Kimel said. "Obviously that doesn't mean we would have prevented everything because again, Maryland is a pretty potent offense, but I think we certainly would have done better."

Wednesday's game will mark the third top-15 ranked opponent in three games, as the Blue Devils (3-2) have faced off against the likes of then-No. 4 Northwestern and then-No. 3 Maryland in their past two contests.

Although Wednesday's contest provides Duke with an opportunity to turn the recent stretch around, the Georgetown (2-1) offense will not make that easy for the Blue Devils.

The Hoyas love to take a high volume of shots, averaging 35.7 shots per game and 15.3 goals per game, both numbers that beat out Duke's season averages of 25.8 and 14.2. In order to slow down Georgetown, the Blue Devils will have to flip the script and take advantage of the Hoyas' weak defense in order to counter and limit the amount of shots that Duke goalkeeper Kelsey Duryea will be forced to defend.

"A key to [taking advantage of Georgetown's defense] is winning the draw," Kimel said. "We've got to make sure of two things. We have to really focus on winning the draw tomorrow so that we have possessions and when we make stops defensively, [and we have to focus on] getting the ball up the field."

Entering Wednesday, Georgetown's save percentage of 22.6 percent is less than half of what Duryea averages for the Blue Devils, as the second-team All-American is posting a mark of 45.8 percent.

"We're taking everything that we've learned our past two games and putting it all into this game," Duryea said. "Hopefully our defense will come together more as a unit. That's something we've really been working on."

When the two squads faced off last season in Washington, D.C., the game resulted in an instant classic. With the game on the line, Georgetown had a free-position attempt with five seconds remaining. In what was only her second career start, Duryea made the game-saving stop to secure the 11-10 victory for the Blue Devils.

Although the team fondly remembers the excitement of last year's win, a strong victory this year would go a long way in turning the team's momentum around before getting into the thick of conference play.

"We felt like winning on the road at Georgetown [last year] was just a good win, more so than looking at the minutiae of it," Kimel said. "Going into this game, it's always a good game, a competitive game with Georgetown. We both have teams where our scoring is very balanced. We've played, to date, some better teams than they have. It's just going to be a good game."