Duke Blasts Davidson With 8-0 Victory In Women's Soccer

Friday, September 24

Durham, N.C.

4:30 p.m.

Duke University

7-2-0

Davidson

5-4-0

Davidson

#18 Duke University

Duke Blasts Davidson With 8-0 Victory In Women's Soccer

9/24/2004 1:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer

Box Score

By: Duke Sports Information

Sept. 24, 2004

Box Score

DURHAM, N.C.-- The Duke defense garnered its fifth straight shutout victory and the seventh of the season as the Blue Devils cruised to an 8-0 victory over Davidson (5-4) on Friday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium. Led by senior Casey McCluskey, who collected the first hat trick of her career with three goals scored, six different Blue Devils scored goals on the afternoon.

Duke improves to 7-2 on the season and will next travel to Wake Forest on Sunday at 6:00 p.m. to open Atlantic Coast Conference action.

"We played well and I was very impressed," said Duke Head Coach Robbie Church. "With all the signs before this game, I thought this could be a let down game, but even though we only scored one goal in the first half I thought we played hard. The mental outlook was great and it was nice to score a lot of goals."

It was a tale of two different halves as the Blue Devils and Wildcats battled for the first 32 minutes of action without a goal scored before McCluskey connected on the first header goal of her career at the 32:58 mark. The play was set up perfectly as sophomore Darby Kroyer found freshman Lorraine Quinn on the right side of the field and set a cross right in front of the goal that found McCluskey from eight yards out.

The score remained 1-0 at the end of the first half with Duke outshooting Davidson, 13-1.

After a motivating halftime speech by Church, the Blue Devils came out on fire in the second half as Duke scored five goals over the first 6:43 of the stanza and seven total in the half. Once again, McCluskey spearheaded Duke's charge with a penalty kick goal, just 1:31 into the period.

Sophomore Sarah McCabe added her fourth goal of the season off a cross from junior Carolyn Ford, in which she rocketed an eight-yard shot past Davidson goalkeeper Sarah Hobart. McCluskey put the Blue Devils up 4-0 at the 49:43 mark off a fast break spearheaded by sophomore Rebecca Moros, who netted her team-best six assist of the season.

The hat trick for McCluskey, a native of Springfield, Va., gave the forward 10 goals scored on the season and increases her scoring streak to four straight matches with two or more goals scored. McCluskey now has 34 goals for her career, which is one away from tying Sherrill Kester on Duke's all-time list. Her 75 career points ranks fourth all-time at Duke.

"It is really exciting and I feel very fortunate to have so many people playing well around me," said McCluskey. "Lorraine Quinn's ball on my first goal was perfect and Rebecca Moros cross was spectacular. I just feel very lucky that everyone is playing so well in my final season."

Also registering goals on the afternoon for the Blue Devils were freshman Lorraine Quinn, junior Carolyn Riggs, junior Shelly Marshall and sophomore Katie Roark.

Picking up the victory in the net for Duke was freshman Allison Lipsher, who improved to 5-2 on the year. Lipsher, a product of Honolulu, Hawaii, finished with one save. Also seeing action in goal for the Blue Devils were senior Kate Straka and junior Alexis Morant, who finished with one and two saves, respectively.

"In the second half, we did a good job of running balls, getting diagonal balls and finishing them," said Church. "I am really looking forward now to starting ACC play on Sunday at Wake Forest. They are a very good team at home and it is going to be a great match-up. We will get a chance to see where we are and how we stack up against the top teams in the nation."

For the game, the Blue Devils outshot Davidson, 26-6. The seven goals scored in the second half is a new school record for goals in a half by the Blue Devils.

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