Rally puts Cavs in ACC final

Duke won the draw, Duke held possession and Duke poured it on against Virginia Saturday in the ACC tournament semifinals at Scott Stadium — during the first half.
After that, Virginia pieced together a furious rally from a five-goal halftime deficit to take a 10-9 victory over the Blue Devils.
Virginia’s defense, led by goalie Kendall McBrearty’s five saves, held Duke to just one goal after the break, and it didn’t come until the Cavaliers had already stormed back to take a 9-8 lead. Duke’s Sarah Bullard’s equalizer came with 9:46 left on the clock.
A couple of minutes later, McBrearty took a huge gamble that would pay off for Virginia in a big way.
“They’d been passing it to the same spot over and over again,” McBrearty said. “I was just waiting until she got it that much closer to the crease.”
As soon as Duke did, McBrearty pounced, flying out of the goal for the
interception. The Blue Devils’ attack immediately closed in to triple team the goalie and seemed to have her trapped along the endline.
The senior made a leaping throw back across the field before tumbling out of bounds, and defender Liz Downs handled the bounce on the long distance toss. Downs immediately transitioned the ball upfield, creating a fastbreak opportunity for the Cavaliers.
“Kendall made a huge play, it was a great decision,” Myers said. “Even if she didn’t come up with the ball on that I would still say she needed to go for it — it was close enough and we needed something big to happen.”
The fastbreak led to a foul that set up Megan O’Malley for a free position shot. The senior midfielder buried what would become the game-winner with 4:48 to play. After the goal, Virginia’s offense did a solid job of killing the clock while the Blue Devils struggled to maintain possession whenever they could get a stick on the ball.
O’Malley, who scored all three of her goals after the break, and Jenny Hauser each finished with a hat trick to lead Virginia. Blair Weymouth had a pair of goals and an assist with all three points coming during the 6-0 run that opened the second half.
The Blue Devils’ last best chance came on a free position shot with 2:43 left that McBrearty saved. Throughout the second half, Virginia made all the defensive stops that it didn’t in the first half, with solid ground balls and forced turnovers by Downs, Claire Bordley and Brittany Kalkstein that led to goals during the Cavaliers’ second-half run.
“Duke only had seven shots in the second half and I think a lot of that was because our defensive play was just that tough,” Myers said.
Duke looked completely out of sync in the second after playing a near-flawless first half. The Blue Devils struggled on the draw after dominating before the break and then committed the series of critical turnovers that turned the tide in favor of Virginia.
“We just, unfortunately, got away from our gameplan at points in the second half and that really kind of doomed us,” said Duke head coach Kerstin Kimmel.
When the Blue Devils held to that gameplan, they created a lot of goals in the first half while leaping out to a 5-0 lead. Five different Duke players notched goals during the run as the Blue Devils whipped the ball through their offensive sets.
“In the first half Duke was playing amazingly well, they were crisp, they were shooting well and they were able to dominate on all those loose balls,” Myers said.
Duke held an 8-2 advantage at the half on ground balls, but Virginia completely reversed the trend, snagging 10 ground balls to Duke’s one after halftime.
Now the Cavaliers will look to pick up a third-straight ACC title Sunday at 1 p.m. against Maryland, the top-seeded squad coming into the tournament.