North Carolina doubles up Duke women's lacrosse 16-8 to close regular season

CHAPEL HILL—It was a gorgeous 78-degree April afternoon at the opening draw as Duke made the 11-mile journey with hopes of bringing home a signature win.

By game’s end, though, rain was pouring down, making for an ugly finish—and nothing about the scoreboard was pretty for the Blue Devils either.

No. 3 North Carolina used a dominant 7-0 first half run to roll to an easy 16-8 win on its Senior Day against No. 15 Duke in another edition of the Tobacco Road rivalry Saturday at Fetzer Field. The back-to-back ACC regular season champion Tar Heels used a balanced offensive attack with six different players scoring multiple goals—including hat tricks from sophomore Ela Hazar and senior Aly Messinger.

Senior Kelsey Duryea struggled in goal for the Blue Devils, saving just 34.8 percent of the shots she faced—far below her 54.5 percent clip entering the season finale. Duke sophomore Kyra Harney and senior Kelci Smesko combined for five goals and an assist, but the third-ranked Tar Heels simply had too much firepower, sending the Blue Devils into the ACC tournament having lost three of their final four regular-season contests.

“We weren’t doing a good job of winning the draw [and] when we did, we were turning the ball over quickly and, more than anything, defensively we were really slow,” Duke head coach Kirsten Kimel said. “I don’t think Kelsey Duryea was seeing the ball very well in the first half and we weren’t helping her much defensively, taking away things that we knew Carolina was working for.”

For the first seven minutes, the Blue Devils (9-7, 4-3 in the ACC) seemed to have some control against a North Carolina team that had thoroughly beaten Duke in the past two meetings. Smesko and Harney netted consecutive goals to give the Blue Devils a quick 2-1 lead.

That lead, though, did not last long.

The Tar Heels (13-2, 7-0) ripped off seven straight goals in rapid succession, blanking Duke for the next 16:41. North Carolina midfielder Marie McCool slid a bounce shot past Duryea to give her team the lead and Messinger capped the stretch nearly nine minutes later with her second goal of the game.

Within minutes, the Blue Devils’ narrow advantage had vanished and they found themselves in a deep hole—one that Duke could not find a way to escape.

“We got away from our game plan,” Kimel said. “We weren’t being aggressive going to goal—that was part of what we wanted to do…. We didn’t have enough people doing those things throughout the game. The second half we got a little bit better with that, but we just didn’t have enough people attacking the goal.”

Although the Blue Devils trailed 10-5 entering halftime, the momentum appeared to swing back in their direction as Harney and freshman Ella Bonafede each scored a goal in the last three minutes of the first half. But both teams came out of the locker room slow—the teams notched just two goals apiece in the first17:18 of the second half.

But then the Tar Heels caught fire again, as consecutive goals from three of their top four goal-scorers—senior Sammy Jo Tracy, McCool and Messinger—extended the North Carolina lead back to eight.

The rivals combined for 45 fouls and 27 turnovers in a game that turned sloppy at times. The Tar Heels took advantage of Duke’s miscues, scoring on both shots they took off free position fouls.

“We had a lot of turnovers today that were pretty uncharacteristic of us,” Harney said. “If we capitalize on those, we start strong and take advantage of our man-up opportunities, today would’ve been a different outcome.”

And although the Blue Devils utilized their usual, methodical pace on the offensive end, North Carolina brought constant offensive pressure early and often, forcing Kimel to pull Duryea for a 2:16 span before the senior goaltender returned to the cage.

“I just think she needed to reset herself mentally and I think it worked,” Kimel said. “She was able to come back and make stops.”

Offensively, Duke found itself in a rut, stifled by a Tar Heel defense that had only surrendered 8.1 goals per game entering Saturday. Duke tried to start a late push with a pair of goals in the final 10 minutes from sophomore Maddie Crutchfield and Smesko, but a huge stop from Tar Heel goalkeeper Megan Ward—one of eight for the North Carolina senior—slammed the door shut.

Duke has four days off before returning to action Thursday in the ACC tournament at Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Va., where it faces fifth-seeded Virginia.

“The ACC tournament is going to huge for us,” Harney said. “It’ll be a testament to our character to see how we’re going to be for the rest of the season.”