It was a battle of ACC rivals, as the Duke women’s soccer team faced Wake Forest on Friday night in the College Cup. It was the second game of the day, as top-ranked Stanford beat fellow ACC team Florida State.
The two teams had faced off twice already during the season, once at Wake Forest (which Duke won) and once in the ACC semifinals (which Wake won).
The Demon Deacons had not allowed more than two goals in a match all season long, but allowed four to Duke on Friday, as the Blue Devils won 4-1 to advance to the National Championship to face number one Stanford. Mollie Patham scored two goals in the second half (one on a penalty kick, which was Duke’s first attempt of the season), while Kim DeCesare and Kaitlyn Kerr also scored goals. It was Kerr’s fifth goal of this year’s tournament.
Duke and Stanford will be looking for their first ever national championship in women’s soccer as they meet on Sunday, December 4th at 1pm ET in Kennesaw, Georgia. You can check out a video of the matchup HERE.
Blue Devils head coach Robbie Church talked about whether there is any added pressure to be playing at Duke:
Our girls deal with that all the time. All the athletic teams deal with it because of the success of the other teams. Our team shares a building with men’s soccer and the two lacrosse teams. We want to carry the load. We are excited. You can see it in the girls. This is something we have worked for since the beginning of August and we’re 90 minutes away from it. Everybody is very excited.
If you want to read more about the two semifinals of the College Cup from a soccer fan, check out Dana Wagner’s post for Aerys Sports.
