Men's lacrosse goes north in search of titles

An unexpected but dangerous opponent awaits

Duke’s top-seeded men’s lacrosse team opened its NCAA Tournament journey last Sunday against a motivated, veteran Delaware squad.

It did not go well, not at first. Duke’s season and its championship aspirations were circling down the drain as Delaware jumped to a 2-0 lead after 94 seconds, then 4-1, then 7-3, then 8-4.

Duke coach John Danowski has been around the block a few times and he recognized the problem. Duke didn’t need to be challenged, it didn’t need an X and O tutorial

It needed to have fun.

Yep. Fun.

“I just think we weren’t having fun in the first half,” he told the media Wednesday. “The pressure perhaps of the seeding. First week without classes, a long week, a five o’clock start, graduation in the morning, Mother’s Day, a combination of so many different things, I thought led to us being very, very tight. There was no yelling in the locker room [at halftime], no screaming, we just said ‘fellas, this is fun and you’ve got to go out and be yourselves in the second half.’ “

It worked. Not immediately and not totally. After all Delaware is good enough to have beaten Georgetown in last year’s tournament, the one Duke missed. And they opened 2023 play with a 25-10 demolition of Marist in the play-in game.

But Duke clawed their way back into the game. The Blue Devils took a 9-8 lead late in the third but fell behind 10-9 early in the fourth.

Duke’s defense took over, holding Delaware scoreless for 10 minutes. Duke took a 12-10 lead in that final period, gave up another goal but won the ensuing face-off and then a huge ground-ball victory by Tyler Carpenter to sew up the win.

“What we did well as a team is stay together,” Carpenter said, also on Wednesday, “talked throughout, encouraged one another. I think that’s one of the great things about this team, we’re positive, we stay together.”

Eight teams left and Duke is on its way to Albany to face Michigan.

Now Michigan is a big name in a lot of college sports. But men’s lacrosse is not one of them. In fact, their 15-14 overtime win over Cornell last week was the program’s first NCAA Tournament win.

Advantage Duke?

Well, Cornell is a traditional power and if Michigan wasn’t intimidated playing them in Ithaca, they aren’t likely to be intimidated playing Duke in Albany.

Danowski said Michigan is playing with house money and that’s not a good thing for Duke.

“They’re playing with confidence, swagger almost. Very loose. They’re having fun. They didn’t expect to be here in the quarterfinals. It’s all new to them and it’s exciting and no one expects them to win except the guys in their locker room. So, they’re going to play like their face is on fire.”

Danowski and Carpenter agreed that there’s one huge area of emphasis Saturday.

“They’re very explosive in the face-off game,” Danowski said. “They can score. We’ve got to be able to defend there.”

Carpenter said his team has heard that message.

‘Their numbers are outstanding, some of the highest in the country. We know as a face-off unit we have to take our jobs really serious and focus on how to limit their opportunities in transition. We can’t let them get hot because if they get hot, things can go their way. Communication and just knowing how they’re playing the game and what they want to do.”

It helps that Duke has a first-team All-American at face-off, Jake Naso, who’s won over 61 percent this season.

“It’s not just the draw-man, it’s the wing play,” Danowski added.

Duke only scored 12 goals against Delaware. That’s not an extraordinarily low number but it does equal Duke’s season low.

Danowski said it’s not a concern, noting that Duke had 45 shots, a few they’d like to have back but mostly good shots.

“Certainly we hope we’re saving up some for this week.”

Keep in mind that Duke didn’t make the tournament last season and there was no tournament in 2020 due to COVID. So, there’s not as much NCAA experience as you might think.

Danowski said he thinks his team learned some valuable lessons against Delaware.

“We faced some adversity. You hope that they’ve faced that moment, they know what it’s like and they’ve learned that an early deficit isn’t the end of the world.”