[ UH SOCCER ]

Lipsher blanks
UH in return to islands

The Duke Blue Devils used excellent team speed and an exceptional passing game to beat Hawaii 2-0 last night in the Outrigger Hotels & Resorts Soccer Classic in front of 1,495 fans at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Park Stadium.

The victory made for a nice homecoming for freshman goalkeeper Allison Lipsher -- the former Punahou standout -- who posted her second shutout of the season for the Blue Devils.

"Duke was better than us. This is the most skillful team overall we have played this year," UH coach Pinsoom Tenzing said.

Duke coach Robbie Church was happy with the way the Blue Devils controlled possession of the ball, but he wants to see better finishing on offense.

The Blue Devils controlled the action for the first 20 minutes with their short passing game and aggressive tracking down of loose balls on the ground and in the air.

Natasha Kai got off the only Wahine shots in the first 15 minutes, but both were from the 22- to 25-yard range and neither had a lot of power coming off her left foot.

There was a scary moment in the 21st minute when a Duke cross came in high by the crossbar. UH goalkeeper Mahie Atay fisted the ball away, then dove between several players in the middle of a scramble 7 yards off the line to make the save, but lay on the ground for several minutes. She resumed play in the goal, but it was determined at halftime that Atay had a possible concussion. Senior Erin Chow took over in the nets for the second half.

The Wahine (3-2-1) put a good combination together in the 37th minute when Joelle Sugai saved a ball along the left sideline and pushed a pass to Kai. She slipped the ball inside to Robyn deHay, who cut toward the goal and pushed the ball toward the right post, but it was a foot out of the reach of a charging Koren Takeyama.

Duke broke the scoreless tie at 42:18. On a throw-in from the left side, Darby Kroyer unloaded a shot from 8 yards that Atay blocked. Carolyn Riggs blasted the rebound and Atay again blocked the shot, but junior midfielder Shelly Marshall, following up on the action, drilled the ball into the open net.

"I thought we played them even until that first goal," Tenzing said. "Goals have a funny way of changing things in a match."

Neither team forced a corner kick in the opening half and Duke held an 8-6 advantage in shots and a 4-1 margin in shots on goal.

The Blue Devils (3-2) made the scoring of their second goal look easy.

Defender Kate Seibert moved up and joined a fast break, carrying the ball close to the 18-yard line unchallenged by a backtracking UH defense. Seibert slipped the ball between two defenders to Sarah McCabe cutting in from the left and her shot beat Chow inside the right post.

The Duke four-back, flat-back defense did an excellent job protecting Lipsher, who was making her fourth start of the season.

"There were no nerves. It was fun. The defense did a good job of holding Hawaii off," Lipsher said.

Hawaii was unable to use the long ball into open space and the Blue Devils were more than equal to the task of holding the UH passing game in check.

"I thought we had chances to use the drop zone (open space between the defenders and the goalkeeper), but when we succeeded, it was too deep," said Tenzing.

Hawaii is 0-2 vs. the Atlantic Coast Conference, having lost to Maryland 1-0 in 1996.

The Classic continues at 7 tonight when Long Beach State plays Duke and concludes Monday at 5 p.m. with a match between the Wahine and Long Beach State.