ACC Champs! Blue Devils Win First ACC Championship

Sunday, May 1

Baltimore, Md.

TBA

Duke University

Virginia

ACC Champs! Blue Devils Win First ACC Championship

5/1/2005 1:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse

Photo Gallery

By: Duke Sports Information

May. 1, 2005

Box Score |  Photo Gallery

BALTIMORE, Md. - Top-seeded Duke clinched its first-ever ACC women's lacrosse championship Sunday with a 9-6 win over second-seeded and defending conference and national champion Virginia at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium. The Blue Devils, who had never beaten the Cavaliers in the post-season, did not trail in the contest.

"They believed in themselves from the opening whistle, that they were going to win this game," said ACC Coach of the Year Kerstin Kimel. "This is something we haven't had. We haven't had an ACC Championship. This group really embraced that and we agreed together, 40 of us or however many of us there are, that we were going to do everything we had to do today to make it a reality. I could not be prouder of the effort our kids put out on the field today."

All-tournament team member Rachel Sanford and Kristen Waagbo scored three goals apiece to fuel the Blue Devil attack, while Caline McHenry anchored the defense with four caused turnovers and two ground balls. McHenry, who joined Sanford on the all-tournament team, held Virgina's leading point scorer Amy Appelt scoreless for the first time in the Cavalier player's high school or college playing career.

"I really just have a lot of respect for [Appelt]," McHenry said. "I think about just taking every play and focusing on that play and not getting ahead of myself. Just stepping out and playing defense and you know what I've got a great defense behind me."

Katie Chrest, Megan Huether and Leigh Jester were also named to the all-tournament team, with Chrest taking home MVP honors. In the two tournament games, Chrest scored five goals, while tallying three assists, four draw controls and two ground balls. She becomes the first player in ACC history to earn the league's Rookie of the Year (2003), Player of the Year (2005) and Tournament MVP awards.

The Blue Devils pulled out to a 3-0 lead early in the first half when Sanford converted on a pass from Waagbo just under eight minutes into the game, followed by two unassisted tallies from Chrest over the span of 1:15. On Chrest's second goal, the junior Tewaaraton Trophy nominee split two defenders to go in for the point-blank shot by Virginia's goalie, Ginger Miles, who finished the day with six saves.

Cavalier attacker Kate Breslin scored two of the next three goals, sandwiching around a tally from Sanford off a pass from Leigh Jester, to bring the score to 4-2 with 7:03 to play in the first half. Virginia's momentum remained strong as they ripped off two straight from Meredith Leachman and Kim Connors to tie the score at four heading into halftime.

"From the beginning we knew it was going to take patience on attack," said Chrest of the Virginia comeback. "When Virginia gained a little bit of momentum we realized we had to grab a little bit of that back and really the only true way to do that was taking the ball and holding it and saying, `We're in charge here, this is our game, and we're going to dictate,' and that was how we were able to do it."

As if to illustrate Chrest's words, just eight seconds into the second stanza, Sanford regained the lead for the Blue Devils for the final time. Jester stretched the lead to two after connecting on a pass from Chrest to make the score 6-4 with just over 22 minutes to play. Breslin again scored two of the next three goals for the Cavaliers to pull within one, but Virginia's comeback attempts were halted there. Waagbo scored the final two goals of the contest, the last coming at 1:14 from Stefanie Sparks to cement the win for the Blue Devils.

In the Duke goal, Huether was credited with 11 saves against six goals allowed, while her counterpart, Virginia's Miles, made six saves while allowing eight goals.

Joining Chrest, Huether, McHenry, Jester and Sanford on the All-Tournament team were Cary Chasney (Virginia), Amy Appelt (Virginia), Nikki Leib (Virginia), Kate Breslin (Virginia), Kelly Kasper (Maryland), Chrishna Juras (North Carolina) and Natasha Fuchs (Virginia Tech).

The Blue Devils wrap up their regular season with a game against second-ranked Dartmouth Sunday, May 8, at noon in Koskinen Stadium. The contest will serve as Senior Day for Kristy Dirks, Lane Fogarty, Katie Laschinger, Caline McHenry and Stefanie Sparks, who will be honored prior to the opening draw.