Minestrella’s Historic Night Sends No. 1 Duke Past Howard, 8-0

Friday, November 15

Durham, N.C.

6 p.m.

Duke University

15-2-1, 9-0-1

Howard

11-5-5, 8-1-1

Howard

Duke

Photo by: Duke Athletics

Minestrella’s Historic Night Sends No. 1 Duke Past Howard, 8-0

11/15/2024 10:08:00 PM | Women's Soccer

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DURHAM, N.C. – Duke women's soccer sophomore Mia Minestrella tied a NCAA Tournament record with four goals to help lead the top-ranked Blue Devils into the second round with an 8-0 victory over Howard on Friday evening inside Koskinen Stadium.

Minestrella, who hails from Redondo Beach, Calif., became the 10th player in NCAA history to score four goals in an NCAA Tournament match, while setting Duke single-game records for goals (4) and points (9). As a team, Duke collected school records for goals in a game (8), shots in a game (31 – tied) and points in a game (24 – tied) in the NCAA Tournament.

Duke (15-2-1) has collected 13-straight wins in opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament in Durham, while moving to 29-3-1 in NCAA Tournament contests played at home.

How It Happened

After attempting seven shots over the first 14 minutes, the Blue Devils broke through at the 18:38 mark as junior Devin Lynch lobbed in a ball from the left side of the pitch to the box.Maggie Graham touched a pass that was deflected by a Howard defender and corralled by sophomore Mia Minestrella.Minestrella turned and blasted a right-footed attempt from 19 yards inside the left post to give Duke a 1-0 advantage.
A little over eight minutes later, Mia Oliaro and Hannah Bebar found a streaking Minestrella, who slid in-between two Bison defenders and beat Howard goalkeeper Trinity Knox inside the left post to give Duke a 2-0 lead.
At the end of the first half, the Blue Devils held a 13-1 shot advantage with Minestrella leading the way with four, including three on goal.
Duke opened the second stanza with a quick goal to go ahead, 3-0.Oliaro served in a ball from the right pitch that Minestrella deflected, but Knox saved the attempt.The rebound came to a streaking Graham, who blasted in a left-footed shot into the top left corner for her 11th goal of the season and 19th of her career.
Graham added her second goal at the 53:34 mark off assists from Lynch and Ella Hase as the Blue Devils pushed their lead to 4-0.
Minestrella put her third goal on the board exactly two minutes later as sophomore Phoebe Goldthwaite drove towards the bottom of the left of the box and sent a cross back in front of the goal where Minestrella took one touch and finished in the far-right corner to give Duke a 6-0 lead.
A pair of Duke freshmen got into the scoring column as well with Mary Long and Sophia Recupero notching the seventh and eighth tallies on the night.
Long headed in a cross from Julia Saunicheva in the 70th minute, while Recupero rocketed a right-footed attempt past the Bison keeper to close the night.Both goals were the rookies third of the season.
For the match, Duke held a 31-2 shot advantage.

Notes

Mia Minestrella's four goals were a school record. Only Kaitlyn Kerr had scored three goals in a 2012 NCAA Tournament match before Minestrella's record night.
The four goals in a NCAA Tournament match for Minestrella was an ACC record.She is one of only 10 players in NCAA history to accomplish this mark.
After scoring her first eight goals off the bench, Minestrella's four goals on the night were her first when starting this season.
Minestrella's seven shots were tied for the fourth-most in a NCAA Tournament match for Duke.
Duke scored a goal in the first half for the 16th time out of 18 matches this season, including sixth straight.
Mia Oliaro totaled her team-best 12th assist of the season and has scored or assisted in 10 out of the last 11 matches.
Hannah Bebar collected her 30th career assist on the night and her second in NCAA play.
Ella Hase tied a Duke record with two assists in an NCAA Tournament match.
Sophomore Phoebe Goldthwaite made her first start of the season and third of her career in the midfield.
Junior Carina Lageyre missed her first match of the season.
Maggie Graham totaled her fourth career multi-goal performance.
Graham and Minestrella now own a tied for team-best 12 goals on the year.The duo scored Duke's first six goals on the night.

Quotes

"Definitely. I mean, I said to the girls in the huddle that making a statement was the most important thing for us. And I think we did that for sure. And I'm so proud of the girls who played well. I think everyone played well. And then for Mia (Minestrella), to get four goals is just amazing. For Mary (Long) and Sophia (Recupero), both of our freshmen, to score great goals too - it just builds on that confidence that we already have. Especially coming off the loss, we did that bit of building ourselves back up and getting back to it. And that's where we're at."-- Duke graduate student Maggie Graham on getting back on track after the ACC loss
"I think it's a credit to my teammates, honestly, finding me in good positions.It's a credit to how we prepared this week. I think we're really diligent on the details and just playing hard, playing fast, and just, I think that helps carry into the game."-- Duke sophomore Mia Minestrella on her scoring tonight
"Obviously, you go into a game wanting to score and to score four is awesome and amazing. And as a forward, that's your job.I'm never like, "oh, I need to score four today" or "oh, I need to score two." Like, that's not really what I'm looking at. It's like, how can I do my job to the best of my ability? And I scored four goals. So, today I think I did my job. It's nice to be able to contribute today, and also have so many other people score too." -- Duke sophomore Mia Minestrella
Yeah, you know, I told her when she came out from the first half, last year – even early in the game, she missed a couple of easier ones. That would have destroyed her (last year). There would have been no way she could have turned around and scored two more goals afterward. She couldn't have moved on. She would have held on to that, but she let it go. And as any forward at any level, you're going to miss goals, and you just got to let it go and move on. So, I was really, really proud of her, and really impressed with how she missed goals, but let them go. And then, she was ready for the next opportunities and finished those opportunities. And shoot, school record for scoring four goals. Our crack SID over here said only 10 people in the history of the NCAA Tournament scored four goals. So, you know, that's outstanding." -- Duke head coach Robbie Church on Minestrella scoring
"You know, first of all, congratulations to Howard University for getting to the NCAA Tournament and winning their first conference championship. And I thought they kind of ran in, unfortunately for them but fortunately us, a little bit of a buzz saw I knew that was coming. We had some really good trainings, after the loss in the ACC Tournament. Sunday morning's training was probably one of my most physical trainings that we've had. Not many smiles, a lot of hard work, a lot of physical play. And training isn't where our team really wanted to be – we wanted to be playing in the ACC Championship, but we knew we couldn't. We had to prepare for this. So, I thought we had a really good (practice) – that set the tone. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday -- all our trainings -- I thought were really good. Right on point. (The team) worked extremely hard, were very coachable, listened to everything. And again, I have to back up; I felt our staff, Kieran (Hall), Carla (Overbeck), Jason (Lowe), did a really great job of preparing and getting our team ready to play. I thought the second half was something special. The speed of play warmed down a little bit, and then we had spaces to run into. We kind of got back to that finishing. That was the nice thing to see, is getting back to the finishing in the second half. So, really happy. You know, it's the first round. Our goal was to be together on Sunday morning when we go back to work to training for next week. And so, we accomplished that. So, we're excited. By the time the weekend finishes, we'll be one of 32 teams still playing. That's an honor and a privilege."-- Duke head coach Robbie Church

Next Match

Duke advances to the NCAA Tournament second round and will host Texas Tech in Durham on Friday, Nov. 22 at 6:30 p.m.Texas Tech defeated LSU, 2-1, on Friday evening to move on to the second round.

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