March 1, 2015
DURHAM, N.C. – Cortney Fortunato scored the 12th hat trick of her 24-game Notre Dame career but that would be all of the scoring for the No. 16 Irish as No. 5 Duke cruised to a 17-3 win on Sunday in both teams’ Atlantic Coast Conference opener under cold and rainy conditions on Duke’s West Campus turf field in Durham, North Carolina.
Duke (6-0, 1-0 ACC) enjoyed a 31-14 edge in shots on goal, a 24-9 cushion in ground balls and a 16-6 advantage in draw controls over Notre Dame (3-2, 0-1 ACC) on the day.
Each of the first six goals of the game went to the Blue Devils before Fortunato snapped the run at 14:02 of the first half when she earned a free position attempt and converted. That would be Notre Dame’s lone first half strike as the Blue Devils held a 10-1 lead at intermission.
Duke scored 34 seconds into the second half to make it a 11-1 game, but Notre Dame wouldn’t let the clock roll for long as Fortunato scored at 26:17 to cut the deficit back to single digits. Fortunato’s second goal was also a free position tally, one where she fired a shot into the top corner of the Duke goal.
Duke scored twice more before Fortunato completed her hat trick with 14:18 left in the game on a highlight reel goal, firing the ball behind her back as she ran past the Blue Devil goal off of a feed from Heidi Annaheim. The Blue Devils scored each of the game’s last four goals to account for the 17-3 final score.
Liz O’Sullivan and Jennifer Blum both saw action between the pipes for the Irish with O’Sullivan making six saves and allowing 11 goals while Blum had a pair of stops and six goals against. Offensive stars for Duke included Katie Trees (five goals and two assists), Brigid Smith (four goals and an assist) and Kerrin Maurer (two goals and three assists). Goaltender Kelsey Duryea made eight saves for the Blue Devils.
The Irish will be back in action on March 7 when they travel to suburban Boston for a 1 p.m. game against Boston College.