Late 4th Period Rally Comes Up Just Short in Virginia Tech's 15-14 Loss to Duke

By Will Locklin

Staff Writer

April 7, 2022

BLACKSBURG – It seemed like a pipedream at first but after the Liebler and Tyson connection put the game within two, the remaining Virginia Tech fans started to believe.

Whitney Liebler positioned herself well on the backside of the net, probing and looking for an open woman. That woman was Paige Tyson who cut into open space in the center of the 12-meter fan and fired a shot into the back of the net. The goal cut the deficit that was once four goals down to just two with two minutes remaining.

After another goal by Vergano, her fifth of the game, Duke won the final draw control and played keep away from Virginia Tech to ice the game. The final score was 15-14 in favor of the No. 7 Duke Blue Devils on a cool evening at Thompson Field. With the win, Duke advances to 14-1 and 4-1 in ACC play while Virginia Tech falls to 8-7 and 2-5 in the ACC.

While every game means a lot to the players and coaches that make up the Virginia Tech lacrosse program, it meant something extra special for Kristen Skiera. The Hokies’ head coach was a former lacrosse superstar at Duke and assistant coach for the Blue Devils.

“I knew they were going to come out and fight real hard,” Skiera said. “That extra motivation that we were going to face my alma mater was a fun twist to it all week.”

In the first period, it was a game of small but special runs for both sides. The 7th ranked Blue Devils came out of the gate blazing. Abby Landry and Katie DeSimone got on the board first and neither team blinked from then on. The Hokies responded with a three-goal run sparked by the trio of Vergano, Liebler, and Lubnow notching what would be the first of many more points to come for all three girls. After a late goal by Maddie Jenner of Duke with 30 seconds left, the score was 3-3 at the first break.

From there this contest shifted to one of the back and fourth variety. Starting at the 11:06 mark of the second quarter, both teams exchanged goals for the rest of the period. Duke would score a goal to go up by one but then Virginia Tech would answer by trying the game. On and on this trend went until halftime when the score was once again dead even.

“I think for defensive stops it helped us a lot to use momentum to see the field,” Virginia Tech midfielder Olivia Vergano said. “Getting up the field quickly and breaking down the zone before they can get into it allowed us to put some goals up.”

When the third period was underway it became clear that Duke head coach Kerstin Kimel had given her girls one motivating pep talk. Duke came out firing on all cylinders from the start of the third-period bell to the finish. They racked up 15 shots in the period compared to the Hokies' two. Duke also won the draw controls 5-3 in the third and had a 6-1 ground balls advantage in the same period of play. Even more impressive is the fact that the six goals scored in the third were scored by five different Blue Devils. DeSimone netted two of her five total goals for the game. Hineman, Carer, Keller, and Landry all also chipped in with one goal.

As the game progressed to the fourth, the hope of a comeback seemed grim but the signs came in at the 13:18 mark of the fourth. That’s when the Hokies finally broke a five-goal Duke run and scored their first goal in over 10 minutes of game time. Paige Tyson netted the unassisted goal to give the Hokies a bit of life. However, as the theme of the game would have it, Olivia Carner of Duke answered with a goal less than a minute after Tyson’s.

The two leading scorers Lubnow and Vergano scored back-to-back goals to bring the game within three but once again Tech got unlucky. Katie DeSimone scored her fifth goal of the game to put the lead back to four with five minutes on the clock. With the strength of one final run in them, the Hokies gave it everything they had to nearly tie the game.

“To come out here against a fourth top 10 opponent in four weeks and to have shown more toughness and more grit than any game so far this season, I’m really proud of them,” Skiera said. “A lesser team would have come out with less confidence and more doubt in themselves but they were assured of their capabilities and never lost that spark.”

The two girls who led the way for Virginia Tech were Sarah Lubnow and Olivia Vergano. Lubnow scored four goals on seven shots. This gives her a total of 37 goals for the season and 53 points on the year. Tech’s leading goal scorer, Vergano nailed five goals on five shots. Literal perfection from a shots and goals standpoint for the fantastic freshman.

“I wouldn’t have been able to score without the girls creating space and moving around,” Vergano said. It was an insane team performance and creating opportunities for each other was the key to the success.”

This was the penultimate regular-season home game for Virginia Tech this season. The Hokies travel to Conway, South Carolina to take on Coastal Carolina next week on Wednesday, April 13 at 3 PM. Duke will return to Durham to play their senior night game against no. 2 Boston College. The game will be a top 10 women’s lacrosse matchup on April 16 at 1 PM on the ACC Network Extra.