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Blue Devils Head To Maryland For ?Home-Away-From-Home? Tilt
DURHAM, N.C. --- No. 2 Duke (4-0) travels to College Park, Md., for an ACC showdown with the No. 5 Maryland Terrapins on Saturday at 12 p.m. Eleven Blue Devils out of the 31 on the team are from Maryland and northern Virginia, making it as close to a ?home game” as Duke will get on the road this season.
The Blue Devils: Duke has started 4-0 for the fourth consecutive season and the fifth time in the twelve-year history of the program. They have yet to play an ACC contest.
The Blue Devils have had several players step up to start the season. Junior attacker Caroline Cryer leads Duke in scoring with 16 goals and has added three assists, nine draw controls and five ground balls. Cryer was named ACC Player of the Week on Feb. 19 after scoring 12 goals in Duke’s first two games, including a school record-tying seven goal performance in one game at Denver. Senior attacker Kristen Waagbo has five goals and a team-best nine assists to go along with seven ground balls. Sophomore midfielder Carolyn Davis has ten goals, four assists, seven ground balls and six caused turnovers. Senior captain and midfielder Rachel Sanford has contributed ten goals and two assists. Sanford also leads the team in draw controls (10) and caused turnovers (11). Adding five goals and six assists is senior attacker Leigh Jester. Sophomore goalie Kim Imbesi has been stellar in her first season as a starter, with a 6.09 goals against average and a .566 save percentage.
The Opponent: Maryland is off to a 2-0 start in 2007, including a 1-0 mark in ACC play. The Terrapins return eight of 12 starters from a team that went 12-8 in 2006 and were eliminated from the first round of the NCAA tournament.
The Terps are paced by four players averaging almost two points a game or better. Senior attacker Krista Pelizzi has seven goals, five assists and four draw controls, and was named ACC Player of the Week on Feb. 26 for her efforts in Maryland’s first two games. Junior attacker Katie Princiotto has recorded three goals and seven assists for the Terrapins so far. At midfield, freshman Amanda Spinnenweber has scored five goals and two assists and picked up five draw controls. Junior midfielder Dana Dobbie has tallied seven goals, three caused turnovers, and an amazing 14 draw controls. In goal, the Terrapins have junior Allie Buote, who boasts a 7.22 goals against average and a .625 save percentage.
Series History: Maryland leads the series 8-6, but Duke has won the last four and five out of the last six. The Blue Devils won both meetings between the squads last season: 9-7 at home on Feb. 25, 2006, and 19-9 in Baltimore, Md. on Apr. 29, in the ACC tournament.
Rankings: Duke is ranked second in the Inside Lacrosse poll for the third straight week. Maryland moved up one place to the fifth spot after their two wins to open the season. The first regular season IWLCA poll will come out on Monday, as will the newest installment of the Inside Lacrosse rankings.
Last Time Out: Last Sunday, Feb. 25, the Blue Devils crushed William & Mary at home in the rain, 15-3. Cryer, Waagbo, Davis and Jester all had three goals and one assist apiece, and Duke’s defense held the Tribe scoreless for the first 36 minutes of the game.
Maryland’s last contest was an ACC matchup against Boston College at home on Feb. 24. The Terrapins won, 18-8, on the strength of five goals and three assists by Pelizzi and four goals by senior midfielder Katie Doolittle.
Maryland, My Maryland: Nine Blue Devils hail from the state of Maryland: Jessica Adam (Severna Park/Severn School), Regan Bosch (Annapolis/Severn School), Christine Casey (Bethesda/Holton-Arms), Megan Del Monte (Lutherville/St. Paul’s for Girls), Meghan Ferguson (Lutherville/Rowland Park), Allie Johnson (Annapolis/Broadneck), Aiyana Newton (Baltimore/Park School), Kim Pastrana (Edgewater/St. Mary’s), and Waagbo (Ellicott City/Mt. Hebron). Two more grew up not far from College Park in northern Virginia: Lindsay Gilbride (Alexandria/Georgetown Visitation) and Abigail Meyer (Alexandria/St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes). It will be a homecoming of sorts for these 11 players on Saturday.
“There’s nothing like going home and playing in front of a hometown crowd,” said Pastrana earlier this week in practice. “The energy that is on the field is electrifying. It’s almost equal to playing in a championship game.”
“Many of us played on the same club team as their goalie [Allie Buote],” explained Johnson when asked about Maryland. “She knows where we like to shoot, so we’re going to have to mix it up a little.”
Preseason Awards: Sanford, Waagbo and Jester piled up the preseason awards last month. All three were named to the Tewaaraton Award watch list, which is the award given to the most outstanding collegiate female lacrosse player at the end of the season. Sanford, Waagbo and Jester were also named to Inside Lacrosse’s Division I preseason All-America list. Waagbo and Jester were first team preseason All-America selections while Sanford made the second team. Inside Lacrosse pegged Waagbo as one of its preseason “fab five” for the Nike Tewaaraton Tracker.
Waagbo Watch: Waagbo set the all-time Duke assists record on Feb. 18 against Stanford. She now has 81 career assists after tallying nine in the first four games. Waagbo is within range of breaking several other records this season as well. She currently has 120 career goals, which puts her in sixth place behind Kelly Dirks, who is in fifth place with 125. Katie Chrest holds the school record with 216. Waagbo’s 201 points is third on the all-time Duke list, with Chrest in first with 287 and Tricia Martin in second with 236. The 284 shots Waagbo has taken is good for sixth-best in the program’s history, while Dirks sits in fifth with 299 and Chrest holds the top position with 528.
On The Horizon: The next game for Duke will be at home versus No. 4 Princeton on Sunday, March 11. Face-off is set for 1:00 p.m. The Blue Devils will play another home game three days later, which will be against No. 18 Vanderbilt on March 14 at 2:00 p.m.
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