Women's Soccer Opens Season With 1-0 Win at Georgia

Friday, August 20

Athens, Ga.

7:00 p.m.

Duke University

Georgia

Lester Named Ronald McDonald House Athlete of the Week

Women's Soccer Opens Season With 1-0 Win at Georgia

8/20/2010 10:44:00 PM | Women's Soccer

Box Score

By: Duke Sports Information

ATHENS, Ga. - The 24th-ranked Duke women's soccer team (1-0) opened the 2010 campaign on Friday night with a 1-0 victory over Georgia (0-1) in front over 2,000 fans at the UGA Soccer Stadium in Athens, Ga. The Blue Devils registered their first road victory to open the season since 2000 at Catawba.

"It was a great win in front of a great crowd," said Duke Head Coach Robbie Church. "In the first half, we were really good and carried out our game plan."

Duke took the first shot of the match off the leg of senior Rebecca Allen, but was saved by Bulldog goalkeeper Ashley Baker. Georgia came right back with two straight shots after a corner kick but both went high. The Blue Devils jumped on the attack again with another shot from Allen and standout freshman Mollie Pathman attempted the first shot of her career, which was also saved by Baker.

After three attempts on goal, Duke registered its first tally of the 2010 campaign in the 13th minute as Allen sent a cross over from the left wing to an awaiting senior Molly Lester on the right edge of the box. Lester settled and fired home the 15-yard shot into the bottom left corner for her first career goal. Playing in her home state of Georgia, Lester was seeing action in her first career start in the midfield after missing her freshman and junior campaigns with knee injuries.

"The win felt awesome and the goal was a little bit surreal as I wasn't quite certain that it had gone in," said Lester. "I hadn't done that before. Everyone played really well and it was a really good feeling to beat them on their home turf in front of a big crowd."

Freshman Laura Weinberg, senior Gretchen Miller, freshman Gilda Doria and Lester added shots to close out the first half for the Blue Devils. Duke and Georgia were knotted, 9-9, in shot attempts in the first stanza with the Blue Devils holding a 1-0 lead.

"We scored a brilliant goal from an unbelievable pass from Rebecca Allen and a great finish by Molly Lester," commented Church. "We kept possession, we changed our point of attack and we did some really good things in the first half. We could have been up a couple of goals in the first half."

Georgia came out in the second half looking to even the match as the Bulldogs fired four shots in the first three minutes as one hit the post, one went high, one was blocked and then the final one was saved by sophomore goalkeeper Tara Campbell.

"The second half things changed as we didn't come out of the lockerroom as focused and composed as we were in the first," said Church. "They snatched the momentum right at the beginning of the second half and never really let go."

The rest of the contest was very even with both teams peppering the posts but nothing could get past the keepers. Both Allen and freshman Natasha Anasi each had good scoring chances but couldn't put it in the back of the net. Georgia put on a furious rally to close the contest with five shots over the final eight minutes of play but Campbell saved three of the attempts.

"Protecting the 1-0 lead was definitely a group effort," said Lester. "We made a lot of subs and had a lot of people in. Our back line played great. It was a hard fought battle there at the end but it turned out the way we wanted it to."

For the match, Georgia outshot the Blue Devils, 21-14, including a 12-5 advantage in the second half. In goal for Duke, Campbell registered her seventh career shutout as she corralled six saves in 90 minutes. Baker added eight saves for the Bulldogs in the net over 90 minutes.

"We definitely had some more dangerous scoring chances than Georgia did as they had a lot of shots that went over the goal," said Church. "Our defense was so solid and they just battled. It wasn't the perfect game but it is Aug. 20. How we won it I am really glad. They had a couple thousand people there at the game, opening night, new coach and a tough place to go in and win. It was just a huge win for us, but we have to go back to practice and get better."

A total of 20 Blue Devils saw action in the contest, including six true freshmen -- Pathman, Weinberg, Anasi, Alex Straton, Avery Rape and Gilda Doria -- along with redshirt freshman Callie Simpkins. Lester, Weinberg and Allen led Duke with three shots each.

Duke will next travel just down the road to Chapel Hill to compete in the Nike Carolina Classic on Aug. 27 and 29. The Blue Devils will face Missouri on Aug. 27 at 4:00 p.m., and then will take on No. 1 ranked Stanford on Aug. 29 at 11:00 a.m. Both games will be played on the road at Fetzer Field on the campus of North Carolina.

Notes:

Duke started the match with eight freshmen and sophomores with Mollie Pathman and Laura Weinberg starting their first collegiate contests.
Molly Lester had taken only one shot in 12 career collegiate games before notching her first career goal on Friday. Lester is a native of Atlanta, Ga., and was going up against many former club and ODP teammates on the Georgia squad.
The last road victory to open the season came in the 2000 campaign at Catawba with a 6-0 blanking. The Blue Devils had lost in a neutral contest against Pepperdine (0-0, T) in 2007 and fell at Tennessee (4-3, OT) in 2004.
Duke has held its opponent to zero goals in the season opener the last three straight years.
The Blue Devils won their fourth straight match against Georgia and the second in a row in Athens. Overall, Duke leads the series with the Bulldogs, 4-2.

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