No. 9 Duke Downs No. 6 Syracuse, 4-0, to Open ACC Play

Friday, September 15

Durham, N.C.

6 p.m.

Duke University

(5-1, 1-0)

Syracuse

(5-1, 0-1)

Syracuse

Duke University

Photo by: Nat LeDonne / Duke Athletics

No. 9 Duke Downs No. 6 Syracuse, 4-0, to Open ACC Play

9/15/2023 9:43:00 PM | Field Hockey

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DURHAM – Duke sophomore Alaina McVeigh scored twice in the fourth quarter and the ninth-ranked Blue Devils held Syracuse to just six shots to come away with a thrilling 4-0 victory over the No. 6 Orange in Friday night field hockey action at Williams Field.

The victory pushes the Blue Devils to 5-1 overall and hands Syracuse its first loss of the campaign. Senior captains Barb Civitella and Charlie van Oirschot tallied goals, while Megan Maransky notched her first career point with an assist on what proved to be the game winner.

In goal, Piper Hampsch made three saves as the Blue Devils notched their first ACC shutout since Oct. 11, 2019, against Wake Forest.

How it Happened

Duke jumped all over the Orange, taking a 1-0 lead eight minutes into the contest. After the Blue Devils had been threatening from the opening whistle, Maransky used a quick restart and beat a Syracuse defender to the baseline with incredible stick work. The junior defender slipped a pass across the face of the goal where Civitella put it in for her first goal of the season.
The Blue Devils continued to control much of the action and turned in superb defense on penalty corners to keep Syracuse off the board. Hampsch made a great kick save on an Orange penalty corner at 9:35, sending Duke into the first break with a 1-0 lead.
Six minutes into the second quarter it was van Oirschot giving the Blue Devils a 2-0 advantage. After a redirect off a penalty corner shot hit the post, the veteran midfielder was on the doorstep to put in the rebound. The goal was van Oirschot's first of the season as Duke went into the locker room ahead, 2-0.
Duke stifled Syracuse's efforts to get back into the game in the third quarter, holding the high-powered Orange offense to just two shots and no penalty corners.
McVeigh put the game away for the Blue Devils, notching goals five minutes apart. The first came in the 54th minute on a spectacular reverse shot past the Syracuse goaltender. Five minutes later, McVeigh took a pass from van Oirschot and dribbled through the Orange defense for her eighth goal of the season.
Duke outshot Syracuse, 12-6, for the game and won the penalty corner battle 4-3. The Orange didn't have any penalty corners after the 10-minute mark of the first quarter. In goal for Syracuse, Brooke Borzymowski made three saves.

Notes

Duke improves to 5-1 on the year, marking the seventh time under head coach Pam Bustin the Blue Devils have won at least five of their six games.
The win is Duke's third over a top-10 opponent – matching the 2019 team that posted three top-10 victories in the first six games. Duke had six top-10 wins in 2015 when it advanced to the NCAA semifinals.
The ACC victory is Duke's first ACC win since defeating No. 3 Louisville in a shootout April 10, 2021. It is Duke's first win over Syracuse since the 2018 season and just the third overall.
Duke held Syracuse to just three penalty corners and eight shots. The Orange came in averaging 11.40 and 18.0 per game, respectively.
The shutout is Hampsch's seventh of her career and first solo shutout of the season.
Alaina McVeigh now has a goal in every game as a Blue Devil. She leads Duke with eight this season.

Quotes
Bustin on the win
"I think you always that's how the game will go, but rarely it does, so you prepare for the fight. You prepare for the close game and that's our mentality. What happened was we just stayed with our mentality from the beginning to the end and when you do that you have opportunities to score the goal or put the ball in the net and we capitalized on those opportunities today. I really enjoyed it because it doesn't happen very often, especially in our conference. The fact that this team was able to play just continue to play and play hard for 60 minutes I'm really proud of them."

Bustin on Duke's defensive effort
"It was an incredibly talented Syracuse offense and one that kind of led us to really work throughout the week on how we were going to defend it. The discipline that the team showed from beginning to end was incredible. They executed the game plan we had. We did change strategically a little bit in the back, and they executed it. They stayed with confidence. They stayed with patience, but also attacking. They were a very attacking defense. They weren't afraid to step up for interceptions. They weren't afraid to stay close to their mark. They weren't afraid to double team. And all of those things led to our attacking opportunities."

Bustin on the team's steady effort throughout the 60 minutes
"I think the third period we sustained [our energy]. I thought Syracuse came with more energy and power and tried to flip it. We didn't do anything fancy. We didn't try to match it. What we just did was played really good team defense and Piper came up with some big saves to keep that energy going. Then we had a couple opportunities moving forward. Once the team is trying hard to attack the counter can be great and we capitalized on some counterattacks."