Redondo’s Mia Minestrella closes in on Duke scoring record
Mia Minestrella did not score a goal her freshman year at Duke. She has scored 45 since. The Redondo Union High School graduate, now a senior forward for the sixth-ranked Blue Devils and a national player of the year candidate, is two goals shy of tying Duke’s career scoring record of 47. “She does not shy away from things that are going to be very difficult and make her better,” Robbie Church, Duke’s head coach at the time, said when Minestrella arrived in Durham in 2023. She played 16 matches that first season, starting two, without a goal. Then she scored 12 as a sophomore, 18 as a junior and 15 so far this fall, tied for the most in the Atlantic Coast Conference. She is the first Duke player to score 10 or more goals in three straight seasons. In NCAA Tournament play she owns a program-record 10 goals, including four in one match against Howard in 2024, which tied a tournament record. Her second hat trick of this season came Oct. 16 at SMU, two of the three goals on headers. TopDrawerSoccer ranks her No. 5 in the country on its midseason list of the top 100 college players. Headers were her signature in Redondo, too. On Feb. 26, 2022, at the Sea Hawk Bowl, the junior put a…
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