Less than a week removed from an embarrassing 19-7 home loss to North Carolina in their regular season finale matchup, the Blue Devils traveled to Richmond, Va., seeking redemption against their Tobacco Road rivals in the ACC tournament.
But little changed in the five days between matchups, with the reigning national champions dealing Duke another 12-goal rout Thursday afternoon and knocking the Blue Devils out of the ACC tournament for the second straight season.
No. 8 seed Duke suffered an 18-6 blowout defeat at the hands of the top-seeded Tar Heels at Sports Backers Stadium, marking its seventh straight loss against North Carolina. The Blue Devils never got hot on offense—senior Kitty Morrissey finished the game as Duke’s only player with more than one point on the day.
With the Blue Devil defense surrendering a pair of hat tricks and five different North Carolina players racking up three or more points, the Tar Heels continued their undefeated streak in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament.
“We were in a position where we had opportunities and we had possessions,” Duke head coach Kerstin Kimel told GoDuke.com. “We just didn’t do a particularly good job of shooting today.”
North Carolina (14-2) set the tempo from the opening minutes of the game. Senior All-American Molly Hendrick, who tallied a career-high seven goals in Thursday’s uneven contest, opened the floodgates for the Tar Heels, converting on a free-position shot 2:32 into the first half for her 54th goal of the season.
North Carolina fired off four more consecutive goals in the next five minutes, establishing an early 5-0 lead against a shell-shocked Blue Devil squad.
Duke (8-9) managed to regain its footing as Morrissey put the Blue Devils on the board with back-to-back goals to tie her career high and cut the Tar Heel lead to three. For a moment, Duke looked rejuvenated and primed to stage a comeback, but North Carolina senior Carly Reed found the back of the net to notch a hat trick just 10:23 into the game.
“The looks that we really wanted, we either got them and didn’t finish, or we struggled with our execution,” Kimel said.
The Tar Heels kept their foot on the gas pedal from there, scoring six more unanswered goals in a 12-minute span. After her seventh goal allowed in 16:37 of play, Kimel replaced freshman netminder Gabbe Cadoux—who took over the starting role between the pipes midway through the season—with sophomore goalkeeper Jamie Lockwood.
Blue Devil freshman Catherine Cordrey managed to stop the bleeding, converting on a free-position shot with 8:05 to go in the half, but North Carolina found the back of the net twice more before ending the half with a 13-3 lead and all of the momentum.
Although Duke opened the scoring in the second half with a quick goal from senior Hayley Shaffer, the Blue Devils could not cut into the 10-goal lead the Tar Heels built up in the opening 30 minutes. With a running clock for all but 5:23 of the second half, Duke found itself fighting an uphill battle to get back into the contest.
North Carolina managed to string together back-to-back goals on two separate occasions, but a much more stringent Blue Devil defense and a reinvigorated Cadoux—who came back to start the second half—limited the Tar Heels to just five goals in the final 30 minutes.
Unlike Saturday's matchup when North Carolina and senior Sammy Jo Tracy dominated the draw battle 19-9, Thursday’s contest saw a much more competitive effort from Duke on the draw. Sophomore Olivia Jenner—who ranks 13th in the country at 5.9 draw controls per game—pulled in nine draw controls on the day to lead the Blue Devils to a 15-11 ledger in the draw circle.
But the Tar Heels led in nearly every other category, securing 18 ground balls to Duke’s seven and taking 41 shots to the Blue Devils’ 25. Duke needed to play a nearly perfect game in order compete with North Carolina, and now it may not have the chance to correct its mistakes until next season.
Heading into the ACC tournament, the Blue Devils sat just outside the top 20—only 26 teams will earn a spot in the NCAA tournament—and after their missing out on its chance at an automatic bid, Duke will be desperately hoping for one of the 13 at-large bids.
If the Blue Devils do miss out, it will be the first time that they have not played in May since 1997, just the program's second year in existence.
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