No. 6 Duke had No. 1 Northwestern on the ropes Friday afternoon in Newton, Mass., but the Wildcats found the late push they needed and walked away with a 4-3 overtime win in non-conference field hockey action.
Duke built a 3-1 halftime lead and spent much of the second half doing enough to keep Northwestern at arm’s length. But the Wildcats erased that cushion with three goals over the final 21 minutes of regulation and overtime, capped by a Sol Martinez Vivo finish in the seventh minute of the extra period.
The Blue Devils got goals from three different players. Juniors Ashley Stockdale and Callie Rogers scored, while graduate student Alaina McVeigh added a goal and an assist to lead Duke with three points.
Junior Julia Boehringer also picked up an assist. In cage, junior goalkeeper Kaiya Chepow turned in a career performance with a personal-best 10 saves.
Northwestern opened the game with the early edge, controlling much of the first 15 minutes and putting three shots on goal in that stretch. Chepow stopped the first two, but Ashley Sessa slipped one through at 10:08 for a 1-0 Wildcats lead.
Duke answered almost immediately. Just over a minute later, Stockdale tied it at 1-1 in the 12th minute after taking a pass from graduate student Philine Klas, weaving past a pair of defenders and firing a shot from just inside the top of the circle into the bottom left corner. It was Stockdale’s fourth goal of the season.
The second quarter belonged to Duke. The Blue Devils grabbed a 2-1 lead on a penalty corner, using a bit of deception on the play as McVeigh redirected a low shot from Boehringer into the right-back corner of the cage.
Duke kept coming and earned four more penalty corners in the period. One of them produced another goal late in the half, when Rogers hammered home a shot from the right side for her first career goal. McVeigh got the assist, and the Blue Devils took a 3-1 lead into halftime with 40 seconds left in the opening half.
Chepow helped preserve that margin with four more saves in the second quarter, including a pair of big stops on Olivia Bent-Cole and Sessa late in the frame.
Northwestern chipped away after the break. The third quarter stayed tight, with the Wildcats holding a 4-3 advantage in shots, but both goalkeepers held firm. Juliana Boon stopped chances from McVeigh and sophomore Shae Wozniak, while Chepow denied a Northwestern look off a corner to keep Duke ahead after 45 minutes.
The Wildcats finally broke through in the fourth. Isle Tromp scored with a little more than 10 minutes left to cut the deficit to one, then struck again at 54:54 to tie it at 3-3. Both goals came on penalty corners.
Neither side could finish in the final five minutes of regulation, sending the game to overtime. Northwestern ended it in the seventh minute of the extra session when Martinez Vivo poked in the winner for the 4-3 final.
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