Dreams of a perfect season were shattered Friday.
The top-ranked Wildcats proved no match for the offensive firepower of No. 4 Duke. The Blue Devils won in decisive fashion 16-10.
Despite an opening goal by junior midfielder Kristen Kjellman 38 seconds into the game, Duke surged offensively and racked up an 11-4 halftime lead.
“Duke was coming off a loss and they were pretty fired up,” coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. “They exploded right out of the gates. They got several fast break goals and they really gained quite a bit of momentum. The opportunities we had we didn’t do a good job with. Nothing seemed to go our way.”
One of the main reasons for the Cats’ early slump was a lack of draw controls and shots on goal. The Blue Devils won 10 of 16 draws and out-shot the Cats 15-8 in the first half.
With the score notched at two-all five minutes into the game, Duke went on a 9-2 run. Blue Devil freshman Carolyn Davis recorded three goals and one assist during that scoring binge.
“They came out hard and we didn’t come out as ourselves,” said senior attack Sarah Albrecht, who finished with one assist. “We watched video on them and prepared, but they executed really well. They had pin-point passes and really made their shots count. They played great.”
Trailing by seven at the half, the Cats replaced freshman goalie Morgan Lathrop with sophomore Abby Bangser. Lathrop is 9-0 on the season, but only recorded one save in the first half.
“(Lathrop) couldn’t stop anything, she was just having a bad day, ” Amonte Hiller said. “On a whole, it was a little bit of a deflating situation. There were really no momentum saves. To (Lathrop’s) credit we didn’t do a great job defensively.”
With a new goalie between the pipes, the Cats attempted to pull off another comeback victory as they did last weekend against then-No. 13 Syracuse and UConn.
However, the Blue Devils were too tough.
Duke senior Katie Chrest, who would finish with four goals and one assist, extended the Blue Devil lead to eight at the 28:20 mark.
Kjellman and senior midfielder Lindsay Munday would post back-to-back goals cutting the deficit to six.
Once again, the Blue Devils responded in aggressive fashion, scoring three goals in three minutes. Trailing 15-6, the Wildcats would make one last surge.
Kjellman added two more second-half goals to finish with a team-high five goals. Munday and junior attack Aly Josephs both scored as well to move the Cats within five with 6:54 remaining.
That was as close as the Cats would come, though. They ultimately succumbed to Duke 16-10, snapping a 31-game winning streak and exposing their vulnerability to the rest of the nation.
“We had several players who played tremendously and they carried the team but we couldn’t sustain it,” Amonte Hiller said. “We had too many bad plays and bad turnovers. We need everyone playing as a unit if we are going to beat teams at that caliber.”
The Cats road only gets tougher. They will travel to No. 13 Penn State on Friday before returning to Evanston to face No. 6 UNC and No. 2 Johns Hopkins on Apr. 21 and 23 respectively.
Amonte Hiller said she is not worried about other teams replicating Duke’s victorious gameplan. She said she is more concerned about how the team responds after its first loss.
“Hopefully this is a wake up call and we can use this as a stepping stone to build from and get us to Boston for the NCAA championships,” Albrecht said. “I think this will only help us in the long run instead of bring us down.”
Reach Steve Silver at [email protected]
