Taking Their Best Shot
Women's soccer carries ACC regular season title into postseason play
Meredith Rieder, GoDuke The Magazine
Duke women's soccer is the undisputed No. 1 team in the nation.
Heading toward November, the Blue Devils are 13-1-1, own the ACC regular season championship with an 8-0-1 mark, and they are doing it all with a love for each other, the program and of course their beloved head coach Robbie Church, who announced last summer this season would be his last on the Blue Devil sideline.
“It’s such a great feeling that this team is so close,” said one of Duke’s top scorers, Maggie Graham. “It carries into this idea of everyone wanting the team to succeed over themselves. (And) the fact that (Robbie’s) leaving means we want to reward him for everything he’s given to anyone who’s come through the Duke women’s soccer program. He deserves that. So, I think there is this weight on this team playing right now that we’re not only playing for ourselves but we’re playing for him.”
Duke, on a 12-match win streak before tying Notre Dame, climbed to the top of the United Soccer Coaches poll Oct. 8 and, following road wins at No. 7 Stanford and No. 17 California, moved to the top line in the TopDrawer Soccer rankings Oct. 14.
While the infrastructure to get the Blue Devils where they are today was always strong thanks to the leadership provided and standards set by Church and the Duke coaching staff over the years, it experienced unexpected stress during Church’s 23rd season.
Coming off a 15-5-3 year in 2022 and a NCAA quarterfinal appearance, the Blue Devils were the preseason No. 4 team in the country heading into the 2023 campaign. However, Duke struggled to find consistency, ending the year with a 6-7-3 record and missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014 and for just the third time under Church.
The Blue Devils, netting just 15 goals in 16 games, were unable to find their scoring touch, which was punctuated by a 1-0 loss at Louisville that ended Duke’s hopes of postseason play.
“(I was) definitely heartbroken,” said Graham when thinking back to the final whistle at Louisville in 2023. “I think no one on the team thought the season would go the way it did last year, and I think no one thought that Louisville game would end in a loss because we only needed a tie or win to stay in things, and we didn’t do that. I think the team just felt almost defeated because we didn’t know how we went from having such a great season the year before to being where we were. We were all distraught.”
Church echoes the feelings of frustration and disappointment but has found the silver lining in it all — their 2024 success. The base of the program was strong, but the team needed to build up from there.
So, when the 2023 season ended abruptly that balmy Oct. 26 night in Louisville, the Blue Devils took the next week off in adherence of NCAA regulations. But then it was right back to the practice field looking to get better both on and off the field. The 2024 season unofficially started that first week in November of 2023.
“They trained hard,” said Church about the 2023 Blue Devils. “They played hard. We just struggled scoring goals, and our confidence kind of got down. So, it was frustration. But you know, I think the whole key to what’s happening this year may be that time when we came back and trained the entire month of November while everybody else was playing in the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.”
When the Blue Devils gathered again, they weren’t focused on the negative. They didn’t have a “woe is me” attitude, just a singular focus on coming back better.
“I think we kind of went through a complete rebuild,” Graham added. “It was almost like let’s start from scratch and see if we can build back up to something great. I think we really pushed ourselves through the end of that year. Then throughout the spring we did everything we could to be a better team. Whether that be working super hard on the field, off the field, creating new team values, connecting as a team. All those things had to happen for us to rebuild.”
While he would have liked to have been playing in the NCAA Tournament, Church loved that month on the training field with the Blue Devils. He basked in the team’s work ethic and their focus on building for the future.
“Everybody came out,” Church said. “Everybody trained hard. There was no yelling or screaming. We were out there to get back and get better. That’s when our season started for 2024. It was that month of November. And it was a phenomenal month.”
And rebuild they have. The Blue Devils, ranking 266th at the end of 2023 in scoring offense, are firing on all cylinders with weapons in all areas of the field. They rank third in goals per game at 3.33, have five players with double-figure points and are 15th in goals-against average at 0.60. Duke’s 48 goals after 14 games were the most by the Blue Devils in Church’s tenure.
So, what’s different for the Blue Devils this year? Tactically, they focused on their off-ball movement and making sure their opponents always feel pressure. In terms of personnel, Duke returned 10 of its 11 starters, including captains Graham, Nicky Chico and Katie Groff. Four transfers — Hannah Bebar, Ella Hase, Mia Oliaro and Farrah Walters — seamlessly slid right into the program, while a talented quartet of freshmen added depth to the roster.
“Our main message (tactically) last spring was making teams feel us when we’re not on the ball and I think that was something we really focused on,” Graham said. “Counter pressure… once we lose the ball we get it right back. That was something we harped on every practice, and I think that’s shown in the way we’ve been playing this year.”
If you are looking for hard numbers to demonstrate the difference, the quartet of Bebar, Hase, Oliaro and Walters have combined for 14 goals and 26 assists for 54 points – 33 percent of the team’s points. The addition of so many offensive threats also has allowed Graham to flourish in the offensive third with 23 points — three fewer than her previous four seasons combined. Anchored by a collection of veterans, the Blue Devil defense has been stout in giving up just nine goals compared to 20 allowed in 16 games last season.
Church, always one to deftly avoid praise, credits his coaching staff of associate head coach Kieran Hall and assistant coaches Carla Overbeck and Jason Lowe for helping put this slight tactical change into play for the Blue Devils.
“I don’t think we talk enough about what those three have done for our program at this point,” Church said about his staff. “They’ve all been really, really terrific. This is something Kieran saw and talked about and it kind of fit our style which is we’ll stay close together, and when we lose balls, we can pressure the ball. So instead of making a 20- or 15-yard sprint, which makes it impossible to get any good pressure on the ball, now we’re making a five-yard sprint.”
Sure, this slight shift in tactics has allowed the Blue Devils to put themselves into more dangerous positions throughout a 90-minute match, but the consensus on the team is that the Blue Devils’ success, especially offensively, comes from within. They are Confident with a capital C.
Their collective confidence received a boost Sept. 5 when a Graham goal in the 45th minute proved to be all the Blue Devils needed to take down No. 2 North Carolina for the first time in Durham. It was a seminal moment for the entire team and staff.
“For me, it was a really unique experience,” said Harvard transfer Bebar. “At the time I had only been in this program a little over a month. I knew how historic it was, and I knew how much it meant. I felt that for myself, but I almost felt it even more because of how much work I knew the team put in following the previous season and so to see that pay off in Robbie’s last season and for everyone who came back for a fifth year. I think it was just really special and cool to be a part of.”
Graham posits the belief within the team comes from the trust in and love for one another they have off the field. They love their pregame locker room dance parties and can’t seem to get enough of each other despite spending long training sessions and meetings and road trips together. All of this has translated on the field to the Blue Devils playing free and taking chances they may not have a year ago.
“I think we just connect so well off the field that it carries over on the field,” Graham said. “I think this is the closest the team has been in my five years at Duke, and I feel like (our scoring) is more of a belief thing than a tactical thing. We’re pressing teams higher on the field. We’re winning the ball more in their half and that sets us up to score more goals, but I think it’s almost like we’ve kind of cultivated this idea of taking a chance and seeing what happens and that’s creating more chances for each person on the field.”
Bebar, who credits the renowned team culture within the program as a key component of her wanting to be a Blue Devil following her career at Harvard, thinks Duke has the capability of taking another step forward with postseason soccer looming.
The Blue Devils have one regular season match remaining, at No. 4 North Carolina to close the year. The ACC regular season title secures a first-round bye in the ACC Championship, but both the league and national tournaments will be exceedingly tough. Church, however, likes their chances if only for one reason.
“This team is tough. This team is really, really tough.”
This story originally appeared in the 16.3 issue of GoDuke The Magazine – October 2024. Dedicated to sharing the stories of Duke student-athletes, present and past, GoDuke The Magazine is published for Duke Athletics by LEARFIELD with editorial offices at 3100 Tower Blvd., Suite 404, Durham, NC 27707. To subscribe, join the Iron Dukes or call (336) 831-0767.