Seniors Lead No. 23 Duke Past No. 3 FSU, 3-1

Sunday, October 22

Durham, N.C.

12:30 p.m.

Duke University

8-6-2, 4-3-1ACC

Florida State

12-2-2, 5-2-2ACC

#3/4 Florida State

Duke

Seniors Lead No. 23 Duke Past No. 3 FSU, 3-1

10/22/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer

Box Score

By: Duke Sports Information

DURHAM, N.C.-- For nine Blue Devil seniors, the women's soccer match at Koskinen Stadium on Sunday could have not gone much better as 23rd-ranked Duke upset third-ranked Florida State, 3-1, on senior day. Prior to the contest, nine Duke seniors were honored along with their families as the group has led the Blue Devils to 51 wins and three NCAA Tournament appearances.

The group of seniors hope the win on Sunday will boost the Blue Devils to a fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance as Duke knocked off a top-five ranked team for the fourth consecutive year. With the win Duke improves to 8-6-2 overall and 4-3-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), while the Seminoles fall to 12-2-2, 5-2-2. The victory for the Blue Devils also improves them to 4-0-1 against Florida State in games played at home.

“Obviously, this feels fantastic,” said Duke Head Coach Robbie Church. “I am just so proud of our girls. This season has been one thing after another. Sometimes you can feel that hey maybe this isn't our season-- lets fold our tents, start over and come back. They haven't ever done that. They have come out every game and played hard ever game. It is great to see them rewarded for all their hard work.”

All nine Blue Devil seniors-- Jenny Alleva, Rachel-Rose Cohen, Rebekah Fergusson, Erin Hathorn, Darby Kroyer, Sarah McCabe, Rebecca Moros, Katie Roark and Lauren Tippets-- started the match on Sunday and held Duke tight with the Seminoles.

“We knew we were going to play a lot of different people in the first half and with some people who haven't played a lot of minutes,” said Church. “We matched their system of a 4-4-2. We talked about it going into the game that we would go after them in the second half. The key part was we finally got rewarded for the work and that was the first goal. That first goal has been the goal that energizes us during the course of the game, that we haven't had [lately]. When all our hard work came and we got rewarded for that then everyone's level [of play] went up.”

Florida State controlled most of the first half and went at the Blue Devils early as Selin Kuralay hit the crossbar in the 10th minute, marking the first shot of the contest. At the 34:22 mark, Moros headed a shot at the Seminole goal that keeper Ali Mims saved for Florida State. Mims got the Seminoles back on the attack quickly and then India Trotter served in a ball from the right side of the field to Kuralay, who headed the ball at Blue Devil goalkeeper Allison Lipsher, who got her hands on it but could not hold on as Kuralay registered her 10th goal of the season at the 35:02 mark.

Duke went on to outshot Florida State, 5-4, in the first half, but the Blue Devils didn't have an excellent scoring opportunity.

After a rousing halftime speech by Church, Duke came out in the second half and played some of its best soccer of the season. This showed on the scoreboard as the Blue Devils evened the match just one minute and eight seconds into the second stanza. Both McCabe and sophomore Lorraine Quinn found Moros on the right side of the box, who was able to fire a shot from 10 yards out into the left corner of the goal for her fourth tally of the year.

“The game plan was we were going to play them even in the first half and then figure out what their weaknesses were. Then go after them in the second half,” said Moros. “That is what we did.”

Duke took eight out of the first nine shots of the second half and kept the ball on the Seminole side of the field. The Blue Devils kept putting the pressure on Florida State and in the 74th minute Tippets had a corner kick that went out of bounds. Tippets got another chance less than two minutes later and capitalized as she sent a perfect corner kick to freshman Elisabeth Redmond, who headed the ball towards the goal. Kroyer was able to get a heel on it and pushed in her third goal of the year to give Duke its first lead of the contest. Kroyer, who is from San Ramon, Calif., posted her 20th career goal, while Tippets registered the 20th assist of her career to move her into a tie for sixth on Duke's charts.

“It [the win] feels amazing,” said Kroyer. “We deserved every minute of it and we word so hard in the second half. We were all over them and outshot them. It is a great feeling beating the No. 3 team in the country.”

The Blue Devils held on with tight defense and then put the match away in the 86th minute as Lorraine Quinn posted her first goal of the season. Florida State decided to remove its goalkeeper and Kelly Rowland took over in the net in the 84th minute. Rowland played a sweeper style position playing farther up than normal and Quinn made the Seminoles pay as she sent a shot over Rowland's head from 40 yards out that went in the middle of the goal to give Duke a 3-1 lead.

“We changed our formation [after halftime],” said Kroyer. “We were playing more like a 70 percent pressure and we knew that we had to be cut out and be all over them. We didn't play our game in the first half and knew we had so much more in us. It was all about us seniors and we had to go out and win it for each other.”

Out of Duke's 11 points from three goals and five assists, Blue Devil seniors had six of those points. Duke outshot Florida State, 12-3, in the second half and 17-7 for the contest. In goal for the Blue Devils, Lipsher allowed one goal in 90 minutes, while posting zero saves. Mims added two saves in net for FSU.

“The two seniors that scored-- Rebecca Moros and Darby Kroyer-- have been mainstays in our program for four years,” said Church. “They have done a lot of really good things for our program both on and off the field. You couldn't have written a better script than to have them scoring the goals. I thought everyone who came into the game did a fantastic job, including the people on the sidelines. It was just a whole team effort led by our seniors. The underclassmen really wanted to send the seniors off with a win.”

The Blue Devils will next travel to Miami on Friday, Oct. 27 at 7:00 p.m. and then will close out the regular season with a 6:00 p.m. contest at Wake Forest on Oct. 29.

“This is the starting point,” said Kroyer. “We have two games left of the regular season and then we have the regular season. We have two win these next two games to be able to make it to the NCAA Tournament. We will take it one game at a time.”

- d - u - k - e -