The Sunday Slide: Blue Devils Duking it Out with ACC's Best

I’ve had this space reserved for Duke since its eye-popping 17-6 win over Boston College earlier this week.

So, yes, a highly competitive 11-10 loss to Stanford on Sunday in which the Blue Devils led did nothing to discourage me. In fact, it only reinforced my enthusiasm.

We know Boston College has taken a step back so far in 2026. I say “so far” because it would be unwise to count out Acacia Walker-Weinstein and her staff. Stanford, on the other hand, is absolutely clicking on all cylinders and showed grit to come back from a halftime deficit and win.

All this is to say I’m impressed by Duke’s resolve, too. The Blue Devils are now 5-3 with losses to Stanford, Johns Hopkins (14-13 in OT) and Pitt (17-10). No disrespect to Pitt, which has taken meaningful steps forward, but I’m willing to say this version of Duke would beat Pitt in a rematch.

There’s a lot to like on the offensive side of the ball. Ellie White is a draw machine, and there are a number of options to put the ball in the net. Avery Doran is perhaps the biggest name and has looked great since coming over from Brown. But Eva Pronti, Bella Goodwin, Ava Biancardi, Quinn Whitaker and Sadie Stafford all have double-digit goals, too.

Defensively, Amanda Paci is wreaking havoc, and there are several ground ball vacuums on the roster.

What Duke does the rest of the year is up to the Blue Devils. The ACC is lethal, but if nothing else, that’ll prepare them for a May run that looks likely to come to fruition.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

During early season ranking shuffles, sometimes teams fall out of favor rather quickly. This year, Virginia was a victim of this, though the Hoos didn’t do themselves many favors with an 0-3 start. But they’re now winners of four of their last five and are looking more like the team most thought they’d be.

Their next three games will tell us quite a bit — Wednesday vs. Princeton, Saturday vs. Clemson and March 21 vs. Syracuse.

Just an in-case-you-missed-it sign of Chloe Humphrey’s impact: she had a hand in nine of North Carolina’s 12 goals in a 12-9 win over Clemson on Wednesday. That’s seven goals and two assists for those counting. She’s ridiculous.

There is nobody better at cultivating draw dynamos than Dana Dobbie. The Loyola assistant has another ace on her hands in Mae Murphy, a freshman with 88 draw controls already this spring. She controlled nine more in a one-goal win over Georgetown this week.

Stony Brook just finished a four-game gauntlet. Two games were decided by one goal, and the other two were decided by two goals. The Seawolves went 2-2 in that stretch, beating Colorado (9-7) and Denver (13-12) and losing to Northwestern (13-12) and Johns Hopkins (13-11).

Stony Brook acquitted itself quite nicely during that stretch and did well to boost its NCAA tournament prospects by both winning a couple games against prospective tournament teams and hanging with other likely entrants. The rest of the schedule, though, is light. Princeton is the last remaining Preseason Top 20 team on the slate.

Speaking of Johns Hopkins — what would we all say about the Blue Jays had they not lost 12-6 to Georgetown? The Jays are 7-1 with wins over Loyola, Duke and Stony Brook. That’s about as good a resume as you can have on March 8.

Justin Feil hit the nail on the head in our weekly picks exercise. Clemson was due for a good win, and the Tigers got it with a 13-9 win over Notre Dame. Regan Byrne’s five goals led the way.

FUN WITH NUMBERS

1 • Person who picked Michigan (me) to beat Colorado. The Wolverines got it done, 8-7, after scoring all three goals in the fourth quarter to overcome a 7-5 deficit.

8 • Goals by Caroline Ling in Rutgers’ 17-16 win over Temple, snapping the Owls’ undefeated 7-0 start to the season.

22 • Draw wins by Emma Burke in Michigan’s 23-3 win over Central Michigan on Friday, a single-game program record.

24 • Draw wins by Morgan Handzel in Cincinnati’s 16-9 win over Eastern Michigan on Sunday, tying the single-game NCAA record.

333 • The new draw record set by Virginia’s Kate Galica, who became the program’s all-time leader in a win over Florida State on Sunday.