After struggling to get their offense going in Sunday’s season opener against Drexel, the Blue Devils knew they needed to come out hot to start the weekend.
They did just that—to the tune of two goals in the first 58 seconds of play.
No. 10 Duke never looked back from there, scoring 11 more goals in the first half to secure a 20-5 rout of Furman Friday afternoon. Junior Kyra Harney led the charge for the Blue Devils with three goals and two assists, with freshman midfielder Catherine Cordrey contributing four goals of her own to notch her first career hat trick.
“We did a really good job today of coming out strong,” Duke head coach Kerstin Kimel said. “A big thing we focused on is we need to dictate the pace. I thought we did that, especially by coming out and getting those first two quick goals.”
After senior Hayley Shaffer and junior Maddie Crutchfield—who was named to this year’s preseason All-ACC team—broke the game open with back-to-back goals within the first minute of the game, the Paladins retaliated with a quick goal from redshirt freshman Ashley Trice. Duke (2-0) extended its lead by two more goals before Furman struck back again with 14:45 to go in the half, but the Blue Devils scored nine unanswered goals from there to head into intermission up 13-2.
That momentum transferred to the start of the second half, with Duke tallying six straight goals before Paige Gamble slipped one past sophomore goalkeeper Jamie Lockwood to stop the bleeding—at least temporarily. The Blue Devils tacked on one more tally, then the Paladins closed out the game with two straight.
Duke finished the day with 12 different scorers and seven players who notched two or more points, a positive development for a team that started slowly five days earlier.
“We’ve worked really hard to try to develop our depth,” Kimel said. “We have to use our depth here in the early part of the season so that we can give people the opportunity to get on the field, contribute, gain confidence and create some rhythms with each other.”
The home team trounced Furman (0-1) in ground ball recoveries, with Crutchfield securing five of the Blue Devils’ 27 ground balls. Seniors Kitty Morrissey and Shaffer and Lockwood each contributed three ground ball recoveries of their own.
Duke also enjoyed a 21-5 ledger in draw controls. Sophomore Olivia Jenner—who set a school record for the Blue Devils with 110 draw controls last season—secured nine draw controls on the afternoon, jumping two spots to land at seventh on the program’s all-time career draw control list. Senior Maura Schwitter added six draw controls to notch a new career-high.
“Liv [Jenner] is a stud on the draw,” Kimel said. “She works really hard at it and she has size, quickness and great anticipation. Maura Schwitter was a really big factor around the draw circle, Maddie Crutchfield too. They both scrapped really hard and had really good timing on balls [Jenner] wasn’t able to win cleanly.”
Although Duke dominated the Paladins in nearly every category, the two teams each committed 15 turnovers. The Blue Devils suffered ball handling issues throughout the course of the game despite racking up goals, an area the team can still improve moving forward.
Duke will need to better secure its possessions heading into its matchup with Navy Sunday. The Midshipmen are coming off of a 20-3 rout of Longwood in which they allowed just seven shots on goal through 60 minutes.
Facing an opponent with more weapons than Furman, the Blue Devils will need to capitalize on their opportunities to sustain the success they have found to start the season.
“I still think we can be sharper in terms of how we execute our offense,” Kimel said. “We still have too many easy stick-handling errors that we have to get rid of. It’s early in the season, but we need to have consistency with those things so that we can have confidence moving forward. We’re trying to build a foundation of who we’re going to be this season.”
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