Roth: Lacrosse Goalie Keeps Her Plate Full

DURHAM, N.C. ? Before charging to a fourth straight final four, the 2008 Duke women's lacrosse team endured a grueling midseason month that included five agonizingly narrow defeats to nationally-ranked teams.

Junior goalie Kim Imbesi readily acknowledges that she was in a slump during the stretch, allowing over 13 goals per game in the losses. But it was not just the likes of Northwestern, Notre Dame and Virginia that were testing Imbesi's fortitude.

When she wasn't on the field trying to protect the cage, she had another arduous schedule to contend with ? an academic load that featured Microbiology, Evolutionary Genetics, Physics, an independent study in Pathology and an MCAT preparation class.

“I think that had more of an effect than I wanted to admit at the time,” Imbesi said. “My position is a very mental position. Your head has to be very clear to see the ball and do everything, and it was so strained all the time from all the academics that it was hard to put that aside and play lacrosse.”

“I think she just had too much on her plate,” coach Kerstin Kimel concluded.

Happily for the Blue Devils, as the spring semester wound down and Imbesi's mind cleared, she returned to form and played the best lacrosse of her career in leading her team through the NCAA Tournament.

In Duke's opening playoff victory at Georgetown, Imbesi totaled nine saves and had four of them in the final 1:32 while the Devils were trying to preserve a 9-8 lead. They won 10-8.

Then in the quarterfinals at Maryland, Imbesi posted 13 saves and had six of them during a critical four-minute stretch late in the contest. Duke won 9-7, holding the Terps to their second-lowest goal total of the season and halting their 17-game home winning streak.

Imbesi was on her game again in the semifinals against No. 2 Penn with seven saves as the Blue Devils pushed the favored Quakers into overtime before falling 9-8. Penn's winning goal came on a free position play in which a key offensive player was left wide open, setting up a shot at point-blank range.

“Kim knew they were either going to wrap the ball around her or go high,” Kimel said. “She guessed wraparound and the kid went high. There's nothing you can do in that situation except try your best.”

The shot kept Duke out of the final and prevented a rematch with Northwestern, which won the NCAA crown for a fourth straight season. But Imbesi finished with solid playoff figures of 8.0 goals allowed and a sterling .547 save percentage, coming through when her team needed her the most.

“At times coaches and kids try to fight through their struggles, and sometimes you just have to embrace your struggle and let it be,” Kimel said. “I thought Kim did a great job of addressing things that she was having a hard time with, but at the same time her teammates did a good job of continuing to support her and having faith in her. I felt like it all really paid off in the end.”

One thing that didn't end for Imbesi, though, was her penchant for stacking as much on her plate as possible. Her summer schedule may be almost as hectic as her spring semester as she looks forward to her senior year and prepares to apply to medical school.

Imbesi signed up for one summer school course for the first session, which began during the NCAAs, and continued prepping for the MCAT, which she took in Raleigh last week. During the second half of the summer she'll do an internship at Duke Hospital and head to Guatemala for a medical mission trip. It will be her second straight summer stint in Guatemala. Last year she joined women's basketball player Emily Waner in installing wood-burning home stoves in a remote mountain village. This summer she anticipates working in a rural hospital clinic.

“I'm kind of cramming three summers' worth of things into one summer, which is kind of my style,” Imbesi laughed.

Imbesi is a participant in CAPE (Collegiate Athlete Pre-Medical Experience), Duke's year-round program that provides female athletes with exposure to a variety of medical-related experiences. She has already spent a fall semester working with patients and shadowing physicians in the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center under co-directors Dr. Henry Friedman and Dr. Allan Friedman (who recently operated on Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's brain tumor).

Imbesi has been interested in medicine since her youth. As a newborn she had a near-death experience due to a milk allergy, and when she was 4 she was struck by a serious case of pneumonia. “Without modern medicine, I probably wouldn't be here,” she said. She began thinking about a career in medicine while she was looking into colleges during her high school days.

That's also when she started focusing on lacrosse fulltime. Her middle school basketball coach in Bridgewater, N.J., first got her to try out for lacrosse and taught her some goalie skills. Early in high school she was playing goalie for field hockey in the fall and for lacrosse in the spring, with basketball in between. At one point she was thinking about a collegiate future in field hockey, but switched gears during her junior year. “I thought, lacrosse is way more fun, this is what I want to do,” she recalled.

Imbesi was a reserve her freshman year for Duke's 2006 final four team, but she has started every game since. Kimel might have given her some time off this year during her slump, but backup senior goalie Regan Bosch was injured so there was no alternative but to work through the situation.

After an 11-10 loss at Vanderbilt on April 20 dropped Duke's record to 9-6, Kimel called together several of her juniors and seniors and said, “Let's be real here. Kim's really struggling. She's doing the things she needs to be doing, and we just have to overcome it and support her.”

“At that point,” the coach said, “the kids really rallied, school was coming to a close and Kim could loosen up and relax, and all the stars kind of aligned very nicely for us at the end of the season.”

“We changed my stance a little bit,” Imbesi noted. “We did some mental activities to get myself better prepared pregame. The combination of that and my teammates being very positive allowed me to get out of that stretch where I was really struggling.”

Her relationship with senior defender Aiyana Newton also helped. Groomed as a defensive specialist since her freshman year, Newton meticulously studied video of opposing offensive players and developed a reputation as a shutdown defender. She usually guarded the other team's best scorer, and she always tried to keep Imbesi on her toes with constant communication. The chemistry between the two was never more evident than late in the Georgetown playoff game, when the Hoyas had a key free position shot.

“I don't necessarily like it when people are telling me, ?She' going to shoot high,' or whatever, but Yani is the one person I will listen to,” Imbesi said. “She's the one voice I will allow to filter in. At one point she said, ?She's shooting low left.' In all honesty, I did not see the ball. Somehow I lost sight of it, but I took a step in that direction where Yani told me and ended up coming up with a save. I have that complete trust in her, and that's a back-and-forth thing, I'm going to miss her a lot next year.”

Next year, Imbesi will be joined at the goalie position by a talented incoming freshman, Mollie Mackler, from Longmeadow, Mass. “It will be good for Kim to be pushed, and good for our team,” Kimel said. “Kim is very balanced in the cage and she will be a great role model for Mollie to watch.”

Imbesi will also have words of wisdom to share during times of adversity, culled from a 2008 season during which the Blue Devils and their goalie conquered hard times and growing pains to shine at the end.

“It's a very big life lesson for the things you can accomplish when everyone comes together working toward a common goal,” Imbesi said. “It's something I'll take with me for the rest of my life.”