Balance has been the key to the Duke offense all season, and Saturday's NCAA tournament quarterfinal was no different.
Six different Blue Devils found the back of the net as third-seeded Duke defeated unseeded Princeton 7-3 Saturday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium to earn a trip to its first national semifinal appearance since 2011. Awaiting them at PPL Park will be a familiar foe—rival North Carolina.
“I’m so proud of our kids because I knew it was going to take an ‘A’ class effort to beat them,” head coach Kirsten Kimel said. “Particularly on our defensive end, our kids were so tuned in, so dialed into what Princeton was trying to work for. That was the key of our game.”
Princeton (16-4) scored the first goal in both halves, but each time, Blue Devil freshmen had the answer. Maddie Crutchfield tied the game at 1-1 with her 13th goal of the season, and junior attacker Maddy Acton put Duke (16-4) ahead for good with an unassisted strike less than three minutes later. Senior attacker Kerrin Maurer added a third goal with 6:01 remaining before halftime to send the Blue Devils into the locker room with a 3-1 lead.
Once again, the Tigers struck first, but freshman Kyra Harney responded to extend the Duke lead to 4-2 and give her team some breathing room. From there, veterans paced the offense, putting three tallies on the board. Maurer followed up a goal by classmate Chelsea Landon by scoring her second goal of the day—and team-leading 43rd of the season—with 15:26 to play. Midfielder Taylor Trimble notched the final tally of the afternoon with just eight seconds remaining to put the exclamation point on the Blue Devil victory.
“We have a lot of different threats in our offense and throughout the season when someone is not having a great day, someone is willing to step up,” Kimel said. “Today it was Maddie [who] finished on our 8-meter and Kyra [who] had a great take around the crease in a critical point to make sure that we stole some momentum back out of the beginning of the second half.”
Princeton (16-4) entered the game averaging 11.9 goals per contest but was held to just three Saturday against the Blue Devil defense. After the Tigers scored the first goal of the game 2:58 into the opening period, Duke held Princeton scoreless until the first minute of the second half, when senior midfielder Erin Slifer fed sophomore Olivia Hompe to trim the Blue Devils’ lead to 3-2.
Goalkeeper Kelsey Duryea delivered five saves, with three of them coming after halftime. The Tigers threatened to cut the Duke lead to 6-4 with multiple shot attempts in a four-minute span, but the junior ensured that there would be no comeback by the visiting team, turning every shot aside.
The Blue Devil defensive line picked seven ground balls and caused two turnovers in the win, executing Kimel's game plan well against a Princeton offense with multiple weapons.
“Our defenders gave me shots that I could see and that I could save,” Duryea said. “We did a great job executing and playing with heart and hustle for the full 60 minutes.”
The second-seeded Tar Heels orchestrated a comeback effort to beat Penn State 11-8 Saturday, meaning Duke will take on its cross-town rival in a national tournament semifinals Friday. The Blue Devils dropped their final ACC game to North Carolina 12-6 April 17 in Durham in a game that determined the regular-season conference champion.
With a familiar opponent to prepare for, Duke will go back to the film room to figure out what it must improve in Friday's rematch.
“I hate the word ‘revenge’ [because] it creates a focus on an emotion that is not necessarily productive,” Kimel said. “What is exciting is that we know our opponent and we get to look back at ourselves in the last game and see what we need to really do better against what they do. We probably know a lot of it.”
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