Wrapping up another busy spring weekend for Duke sports

Some disappointments among them

It was a miserable weekend, weather wise in the Triangle. Steady rain, chilly temps, breezy. Perhaps appropriate for what should be a somber weekend of remembrance.

At a much lower level of importance, four Duke spring sports teams saw their seasons come to an end over the long weekend.

Two of those teams probably maxed out their potential but two more had higher goals that went unmet.

Still, there’s something to be said for finishing in the top 25 nationally. It’s a big country.

Let’s start with the rowing team. I’m not going to pretend that rowing is a sport that attracts a lot of attention. But it is a sport that requires tons of hard work and dedication and teamwork and attention should be paid.

Duke finished 14^th in the national championships, held in Pennsauken, New Jersey. That’s the best ever finish by the program, which had finished 16^th three previous seasons.

“This weekend marked another big step for the program with our best season to date,” said head coach Megan Cooke Carcagno.

Stanford edged Washington for the team title. Virginia (10^th) and Syracuse (13^th) were ACC schools that finished ahead of Duke.

A continent away from New Jersey the Duke men’s golf team was competing in the NCAA finals in Scottsdale, Arizona, one of 30 teams to advance out of the regionals.  Duke barely made it out of Norman, Oklahoma and was not considered a title threat. The 30 teams played three rounds to compress to 15 teams. Duke finished a more than respectable 22^nd.

Duke’s East Campus hosted the only on-campus contests. Duke’s softball team advanced to the 2022 Super Regional. But the 12^th-seeded Devils had to travel to Los Angeles and square off against UCLA. Duke lost a 3-2 heart-breaker to open the best-of-three series and lost the second game 8-2.

Duke was seeded eighth this season, thus giving them home field in the Super Regional. Another Pac-12 team lay in waiting, Stanford this time. This was supposed to have been the season Duke took that next step, the one that leads to Oklahoma City and the College World Series.

But Deja Vu was the order of the day. Duke lost its opener 3-1 and the second game 7-2.

Duke actually led game two after Ana Gold singled in a run in the top of the first. But Stanford responded with two runs in the bottom of the first and another in the second. Francesca Frelick homered for Duke to make it 3-2 but Stanford scored four in the fifth, freshman phenom NiJaree Canady came in the close and 7-2 was your final.

Senior shortstop Kamryn Jackson summed up the ambivalent emotions.

“No one thought we were going to come as far as we did this year. Super sad that we couldn’t do it but I know they’ve got it in them next year. So, yeah, just upset but really proud of this group.”

Next year? Marissa Young and her staff and indeed the Duke administration have brought this program to the edge of being nationally elite in only six seasons, one of which was shortened by COVID. That’s truly remarkable.

Duke needs to be a little better to take that next step, pitch a little better, hit a little better, field a little better.

Not a lot better. The foundation has been laid. Duke does lose grad student Deja Davis, a Swiss Army Knife who has been the face of the franchise.

But almost everyone else of consequence returns. Gold has two more years and pitcher Cassidy Curd and outfielder D'Auna Jennings were just named freshmen All-American.  

As an aside, softball joined men’s soccer, women’s basketball and women’s tennis as Duke teams that lost at home in the NCAAs.

If softball is close to elite, men’s lacrosse is fully elite. Sure Duke missed the NCAAs last season but that broke a 13-season streak. Duke finished first in the ACC this season and entered the NCAA Tournament as the top seed.

But it was a rocky tournament. Duke struggled at home against Delaware but looked like a title team in a 15-8 dismantlement of Michigan. Duke had to go into overtime to beat Penn State 16-15 in the semifinals. Penn State was the fifth seed, so it’s not like they were a pickup team from the Y or anything. But title teams don’t allow 15 goals and walk away with hardware on a regular basis.

Duke was matched against ACC rival Notre Dame for the national title. The Irish beat Duke 17-12 earlier in the season, at South Bend.

It’s hard to say if Duke came out flat or Notre Dame was that good early. Duke did tighten up its defense, with William Helm much improved goal. But Duke’s offense was moribund in the opening half, which ended 6-1 Notre Dame.  

And that’s after Duke scored first. In fact, Duke went over 31 minutes spanning both halves without a goal.  

This could have gone the way of Duke’s 14-5 loss to Maryland in the 2021 semifinals, another tournament in which Duke was ranked number one. But Duke fought back, closing to 6-5 and then tying the game at 7-7.  

“Obviously struggled the first half,” Dyson Williams said “but then kind of take a deep breath the second half and do what we realized -- like there's no point in coming out and kind of sitting down, so gave it our all, and I'm unbelievably proud of all of guys on our team for not giving up and showing our fight all the way until the end.”

However, the Irish scored twice in the final 30 seconds of the third quarter--the second with about a second left-- and Duke never again pushed the boulder to the top of the hill.

The final was 13-9.

Two wins by five and four goals suggest that Duke simply lost to a better team. But two statistics stand out. Duke’s Jake Naso had won around 62 percent of his face-offs going into the title game and had been named first-team All-American. But he only won 10 of 24 face-offs, about five fewer than his season stats would have suggested.

You can’t score without the ball, says Captain Obvious.

Of course, it’s a team effort, John Danowski pointed out.

“The face-off thing, sometimes it's about match-ups. [Notre Dame] Did a really good job of countering, of really driving Jake off the ball, and I thought a couple of times -- we don't see that that often, that kind of technique, but it was effective today for them for sure.”

But the real story was in the Notre Dame goal, where Liam Entenmann notched 18 saves.

Eighteen saves in a national-championship game? Call Marvel Comics. That’s super-hero stuff.

“I thought their defense was doing a really nice job,” Williams said “and I thought we were playing a little bit timidly, as well. I thought we were afraid to make mistakes, which happens in this kind of game, and you have to learn.”

Duke will return lots of talent and reload to replace what is loses. That’s what elite programs do. And yes, coming this far and falling short is a pain felt only by great programs. But it still hurts.

“Didn't win the game,” Danowski summed up. “The other team was better today. That happens. But let's not hang our heads. Let's be really proud of who you are and what you've accomplished and what you're going to accomplish going forward.”

What’s next? Well track and field starts next week in Austin. Three men and 11 women qualified for Duke, enough women to score well in the finals.

And Duke baseball is the number two seed in the Coastal Carolina regional, with UNC-Wilmington and Rider rounding out the field. Duke opens against UNC-W Friday at one.

Baseball will be my focus this week. More in a few.