McDonald?s First Half Goal Lifts No. 6 Duke Over Maryland, 1-0

Sunday, October 16

Durham, N.C.

2 p.m.

Duke University

4-9-2

Maryland

11-2-1

Maryland

#8/6 Duke

McDonald?s First Half Goal Lifts No. 6 Duke Over Maryland, 1-0

10/16/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer

Box Score

By: Duke Sports Information

DURHAM, N.C. ? Duke University freshman Christie McDonald registered her fourth goal of the season in the first half as the sixth-ranked Blue Devils won their fourth straight contest with a 1-0 victory over Maryland on Sunday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium in Durham, N.C.

With the victory, Duke improves its record to 11-2-1, 5-2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and Maryland falls to 4-9-2, 2-4-1. After starting 1-2 in league play, the Blue Devils have won four straight ACC matches and have outscored opponents 7-1 during the stretch. It marks the first time since 1997 that the Blue Devils have won four consecutive league matches. Duke has not won more than five league matches since the 1997 campaign when the Blue Devils finished with a 6-1 mark. Last season, Duke posted a 5-4 ACC mark.

Duke was on the attack for the entire match and started the contest with a 10-0 shot advantage over the first 45 minutes. The most important shot of the first stanza was at the 40:25 mark by McDonald, a native of Newnan, Ga. After a foul by Maryland's Aimee Bresani, Duke senior Carolyn Ford sent a perfect free kick into the box from 23 yards out, which found McDonald who finished with a beautiful header that went into the far left corner of the box past Terrapin goalkeeper, Nikki Resnick. The assist for Ford was the second in as many games.

“Great goal, it really was,” said Duke Head Coach Robbie Church. “We talked about the back side of Maryland may be open and they executed it perfect. You really can not give a better ball and Christie did a great job of putting it on target, attacking the ball, really being aggressive at the ball. I thought it was probably one of the better goals that we've scored all year with the execution, the service, and the finish of it. “

In the second half, the Blue Devils continued to attack Maryland. Off the first corner kick of the day, junior Lauren Tippets sent a ball in from the left side that found senior Heidi Hollenbeck, who then headed a shot off the crossbar before going over the goal. It marked the second time in Sunday's match that a Duke shot went off the crossbar as senior Shelly Marshall sent a long shot at the goal in the first half but it just nipped the crossbar and went back into play.

Maryland didn't collect its first shot of the match until the 73:27 mark of the second half when Kaila Sciascia booted towards the left side of the goal but Blue Devil goalkeeper Allison Lipsher came out and made a diving stop to keep the score, 1-0, in favor of Duke.

The Terrapins added two other shots over the final 15 minutes trying to even the match but the Blue Devil defense held on for their ninth shutout of the season. In goal, Lipsher totaled one save in 90 minutes and now owns eight shutouts on the year. Lipsher, a product of Honolulu, Hawaii, now matches her career high for shutouts with eight and has 16 in two years with the Blue Devils.

For the match, Duke outshot Maryland 17-3 and held a 3-0 corner kick advantage.

The Blue Devils will next travel to Clemson for a match on Thursday, Oct. 20 at 7:00 p.m. Duke has not defeated the Tigers since 2000 with the Blue Devils losing the last six in a row. No member of the Duke team has won a match against Clemson in their career.

NOTES:

? Duke opened league play 4-0 in 1997 and finished the season with a school-record six league wins.
? Duke has outscored its opponents, 22-5, in the 14 matches this season.
? The Blue Devils have outshot their opponents 223-86.
? Duke now leads the series with Maryland, 12-10-2.
? Sophomore goalkeeper Allison Lipsher has registered seven shutouts and a 0.36 goals against average this season. Through games of Oct. 9, Lipsher ranked eighth in the nation with a 0.419 goals against average. In two years at Duke, Lipsher has totaled 16 shutouts.

Head Coach Robbie Church

“Every game that we have with Maryland is physical. They're a hard playing team; they always play hard. It disrupted the play at times. I think it disrupted some of our last balls. I don't think it had a major effect on the play, but I think at times it was disruptive. “

On winning four straight matches after starting league play at 1-2:
“I'm thrilled. It's a tough league. In a sense, I think we all kind of walked off a little bit and thought. Man, we could have scored a couple more goals and we would have felt better. But to get five wins in the league after seven matches, we still have three left, is big time. We were 1-2 at a time, but to come back and playing where we are and looking forward to going to Clemson, which is a place we haven't won in a while. I'm extremely happy. I'm extremely happy with everything. I'm happy defensively, offensively, we're scoring goals, and goalkeepers are playing well. I like where we are right now. “

Freshman forward Christie McDonald

“It was nice to score before the half because we were putting a lot of pressure on them. I thought we definitely had the run of play and it was nice getting a goal before half. “

On her goal:
"Ford had a perfect ball and I think my defender misjudged it a little bit so I was left pretty open and I just put it in. “

“I think we didn't play the best that we could have in the second half. I think we didn't control it as well as we could have, but we still fought hard. They didn't have a shot in the first half and they got a few in the second, but I still think that we held our own for the most part. “

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