Duke Women Set Tone Early, Defeat Navy
from press release
DURHAM, N.C. -- The Duke women's lacrosse team
scored nine unanswered goals to begin the match en route to a 19-10
victory in its first-ever meeting with the United States Naval
Academy Sunday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium.
Duke moves to 9-1 (1-1 ACC) with the win, its fifth straight, while
Navy drops to 9-2 (1-0 Patriot League).
The Blue Devils fired 42 shots in the match and did not allow a
Navy shot until the 11:42 mark in the first half, limiting the Mids
to 22 for the game.
"The big thing is that we wanted to set the tone," head coach
Kerstin Kimel said. "We felt like when we went to Virginia Tech, we
let them set a frantic tone. We were playing a younger team today
and we wanted to set the tone from the beginning; that was our main
message."
Lindsay Gilbride and Christie Kaestner paced the Blue Devil attack
with six points apiece. Gilbride was the leading scorer in the
match with four goals and also chipped in two assists, two ground
balls and three caused turnovers. Kaestner, Duke's leader in points
for the season with 40, registered three goals and three
assists.
Sarah Bullard, Kat Thomas, Virginia Crotty, Amanda Jones and
Christie Barnes each tallied two goals, while Makenzie Hommel and
Alyssa Ogle netted one goal apiece.
Gilbride, who also led the Devils with five goals against Virginia
Tech on Wednesday, opened the game with back-to-back scores for the
early Duke lead. Duke proceeded to break the game open with seven
more unanswered goals from six different players over the next 12
minutes.
Navy attempted its first shot trailing 9-0, but the Mids got on the
board with a goal from Danielle Vivonetto at the 8:41 mark to cut
the lead to 9-1. Duke tallied two more scores to just one from Navy
before the end of the half, and led 11-2 heading into the
intermission.
The Duke attack continued to fire on all cylinders, outscoring Navy
7-2 through the first 19 minutes of the second frame.
Yet the Mids refused to give up and put together a 6-1 run,
including five unanswered goals in the final five minutes, but the
effort was too little too late as Duke left the field with the
19-10 victory.
In goal, Kaitlin Gaiss tied a career high with eight saves en route
to earning her third victory as the Devil starter. Elaina Ponchione
took the loss for Navy, allowing six goals and making a save before
Michelle Verbeeck finished the match with 11 saves.
Duke will have a week to prepare for a game at home against No. 6
Virginia next Saturday, March 27 at 1 p.m.
