W-Lax Makes Winning Adjustments

April 23, 2004

by John Roth
Blue Devil Weekly

DURHAM, N.C. - Basketball standout J.J. Redick is not the only sophomore sharpshooter on the Duke campus who had to expand his game this year to stay ahead of increasingly attentive defensive strategies.

Katie Chrest of the women's lacrosse team also knows what it's like to always draw an opponent's best defender. The sophomore attacker from Hampstead, Md., has seen nearly every stop tactic in the book, yet she leads the Blue Devils in scoring for the second straight year.

And that's no small accomplishment given the Duke schedule, which reads almost line-for-line like the national top 20 poll. The Devils have put together a 10-4 record entering this week's ACC Tournament, with 11 of their 14 contests coming against teams listed in last week's rankings.

Chrest has totaled a team-high 30 goals against some of the best defenses in the nation, all of which recognize that she shoots the ball more than any other Blue Devil. That's after a freshman year when she topped the Devils in shots, goals and assists while earning ACC rookie of the year honors.

"The problem I ran into last year was that a lot of people caught on to my moves, caught on to the stuff I was doing," she said before last weekend's two-game homestand against Stanford and Johns Hopkins, which the Devils swept to complete their home schedule.

"I think at the beginning I was sort of a surprise. Last year we had a lot of attackers. Lauren Gallagher and Kate Kaiser drew a lot of attention and I made up for where all that attention was going. That was the impact I made at the beginning of the season. About two-thirds of the way through the season I stopped scoring as many goals. People started paying more attention to me and I had to work harder.

"From last year to this year, I had to work on not being predictable, on not challenging from the same spots and using the same moves. I've really tried to work on being an all-around player, working off-ball more as well as one-on-one runs with the ball."

It's not unlike some of the adjustments made by classmate Redick, whose offensive prowess on the basketball floor drew so much defensive attention last year that he had to continually add to his arsenal by working more without the ball, learning different ways to come off screens and driving more.

"Yep, he was forced to put the ball on the floor. I looked at that a lot," said Chrest. "I've been forced to work a lot off-ball, work with the crease more than just from up top, and use both hands so when teams scout me they have to say I can go either way.

"We have a very good freshman class that is also drawing a lot of attention and are great feeders inside. Kristen Waagbo and I work really well together so I've been lucky to have someone work with me and get me in the game in other ways besides going one-on-one."

According to coach Kerstin Kimel, Chrest's ability to stay ahead of the defenses has been all about diversification. While she's worked on her shot, learned to read defenses better and developed a few moves inside without the ball, she's also benefitted from teammates such as Waagbo who've been able to get her the ball in scoring position.

"We're not just running things that are purely isolation plays. We're able to do different things," said Kimel. "Our offense is more versatile. We're not relying on one kind of look.

"There is pressure on her. One thing she's done really well is to work very hard at not letting frustration get the best of her. She has really committed herself to working and diversifying her game. Against UNC we played her at defensive wing and she shut down one of their top attackers and still scored a goal or two. We've asked her to take on more and different roles. As the season has progressed we've tried to develop some of the other midfielders to become more defensive-minded so she can help run our offense. She can just do so many different things. She can feed, she can score and I think it's a lot for her, but she's capable of handling it."

Chrest is one of the top talents on a squad teeming with youth. Sometimes the high expectations surrounding this top-10 program overlook the fact that it is so young, having lost a key cluster of seniors last year and having absorbed a few crucial injuries this year. "I need to remember that I am just a sophomore," Chrest said. "I have to keep going back to that because I'm trying to improve my game at this point in my career. No one's ever perfect, but I still have a lot to work on.

"Coming in I don't think I had any doubts that I could do it, but I knew it wasn't guaranteed. I definitely have worked on many aspects of my game to bring myself to this level. I knew I was capable, it was just a matter of doing it."

Lesser players and lesser teams might have been executed by the schedule Duke has faced this year. Last week the Devils were ranked sixth in the national poll and all four of their losses came to teams ranked ahead of them: No. 1 Princeton, No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 3 Loyola and No. 5 Georgetown. Only three of the top 15 teams in the poll are NOT on Duke's schedule this year.

"It's tough but I think it makes us a better team," said Chrest. "These teams show us what we need to improve on, so come postseason we know already. That's single elimination, so we don't learn then, we learned earlier."

Embedded in that slate, Duke went 3-0 against ACC rivals UNC, Maryland and Virginia to claim the first conference regular-season title in program history. This week in Chapel Hill, the Devils will try to win the ACC tourney for the first time before turning their attention next month to the NCAAs and the dream of a national crown. The team has been careful to focus mostly on the steps it needs to take to enjoy a memorable finish.

"I think you have to strike a balance," Kimel said. "When we set our goals, why did everybody come to Duke? We came to Duke to be the best in the conference and to be the best in the country, and that includes winning the national championship. Last year perhaps we were too focused on the national championship and you learn your lesson. But when you have a team that hasn't been there, you do have to get that ingrained in their thoughts.

"I am so proud that this team has been able to win the ACC. This team put a ton of effort into the mental game this year and a lot of work on and off the field to make us the best team we could be. I think it's an incredible feather for this group to have in their cap. They were the first. There are still a lot of firsts for this team to accomplish, but that's a pretty significant first in the ACC. We've never done it before. But at the same time, we can't get too excited about it because we've got to turn around and play this team or that team. It's been a nice confidence-boost for us, but we've also kept our emotions and thinking about it in check.

"And," she added, "I think our kids recognize that the tournament is that true test, Friday and Sunday, and no matter who you play it's two top teams. It's something else we've never done."