Caroline Kimel ran over to the sideline to speak with East Carolina assistant Riley Donahue. It was mere seconds into the first quarter of a road matchup against No. 7 Duke.

ECU had won the opening draw but turned the ball over, so Kimel went to talk shop. She turned to her right to speak with her coach before turning left to see Duke defender Katie Cosgrove. “Ugh,” Kimel thought. It was a faceguard.

As one of the top offensive options for the Pirates, Kimel being shadowed by the opposition’s best 1-v-1 defender isn’t that surprising. Just days earlier, in fact, ECU head coach Amanda Moore had warned her that faceguards could be coming in the future.

But something was different about this one. It was ordered by her mother, Duke coach Kerstin Kimel.

“I kinda gave her a little side eye,” Caroline Kimel said with a laugh. “And [Duke] defensive coach, Nick Williams, I gave him a little side eye in the middle of the game. Like, c’mon.”

For all intents and purposes, the faceguard worked. Cosgrove and Natalie Kahn held Kimel to just one shot — a free position attempt that she converted with 6:05 left in the third quarter. Duke won the game 19-9.

ECU has played Duke in each of Caroline Kimel’s three years with the program. She’s scored one goal in each game. This was the first time her mother hit her with a faceguard, though.

“They were averaging close to 40 shots per game, and the ball runs through Caroline,” Kerstin Kimel said. “To not have a gameplan for her would have been a disservice to us, and honestly a disservice to ECU.

“She was good about it. We’re here to compete. This is part of my job. I didn’t expect it to turn into a funny big thing.”

It certainly caught the attention of the lacrosse world. Kristen Skiera, the Virginia Tech head coach who played for Kimel at Duke from 2004-07 and thus knew Caroline as a toddler, had a good laugh watching the mother-daughter rivalry unfold.

When you faceguard your daughter for the entire game @CoachKimel @kimel_caroline #SAVAGE

— Kristen Skiera (@CoachWaags) March 1, 2022

Kerstin Kimel was quick to respond.

“NOT the entire game…in and out of man and zone…[Kimel’s husband Jack] is not happy with me,” she wrote on Twitter.

The day was always going to come that Kimel would have to strategize for her daughter. As the head coach of Duke since 1996, Kimel’s children have all grown up in Durham. Duke’s campus is essentially a second home. They’ve seen more Duke dynasties and future professional players than most could dream of.

But Duke was never in the conversation when Caroline Kimel started her college process. Her first visit was to East Carolina. She immediately fell in love with the university that was just laying the groundwork to begin a women’s lacrosse program.

“It was really important to me to be my own individual person and make a name for myself as an athlete and as a person,” Caroline Kimel said. “Being at East Carolina and helping start this program has really helped me grow into myself as an athlete.”

Even if different paths were inevitable, Kimel and her daughter share an unbreakable lacrosse bond. They both speak about the game with the same vigor and enthusiasm. They love dissecting plays and even text each other during marquee matchups — like Tuesday night’s thrilling Northwestern victory over Syracuse.

“Caroline loves the game,” Kerstin Kimel said. “She’s got an incredible lacrosse mind. I enjoy just talking shop with her.”

So, even though her daughter wasn’t explicitly told that a faceguard was coming, she had a funny feeling it might. Typical coach’s daughter.

“It’s just another game,” Caroline Kimel said. “It just happens that my mother is on the sideline, and I know all the girls on the other team. I always treat it like every other game, and I would expect nothing less of her.

“If they throw it at us again next year, we’ll be even more prepared than we were this year.”