The defending NCAA champion Duke Blue Devils held off a tenacious Delaware Blue Hens squad, 15-14 in first-round playoff action at Koskinen Stadium in Durham, NC on Saturday. The ebb and flow of the game's offensive spurts by each team was symbolic of the weather conditions that they had to endure throughout - rainy, sunny, rainy, sunny again. The #5 Blue Devils (13-5) were led by Zach Howell (4g, 1a) and Jordan Wolf (3g, 2a) while goaltender Mike Rock made 12 saves to hold off the Blue Hens (11-7) offense led by Grant Kaleikau (3g, 3a) and Eric Smith (2g, 2a).
After a tremendous downpour of rain came over the stadium before both teams came out for pre-game warm-ups, the sky opened up with a tremendous amount of sunlight as supporters for both teams slowly filed into the stands. Though the field was saturated with water it did not keep the Blue Devils from establishing firm control of the game early on. Duke's offense unleashed a scoring barrage on Delaware goalkeeper Noah Fossner that put them ahead 6-1 after the first quarter of play. However, throughout the game, the Blue Hens narrowed the Blue Devils lead to as little as 9-8 in the second quarter and later to 15-14 late in the fourth quarter, until the game clock counted down to secure the closely-contested game in Duke's favor.
A game of spurts
"Everything they did, they executed very well," Delaware coach Bob Shillinglaw said of the Blue Devils offense. In responding to the hole that they were in early in the first half, the Blue Hens' top scorer of the game, Grant Kaleikau, described his team's comebacks as resulting from keeping a positive attitude as learned from past experiences. "We've been in situations before, I think we were down five goals to Towson, down five goals to Drexel, and you know we've been there before so that helped." Shillinglaw and Kaleikau both pointed out how lacrosse is a game of spurts and how their team got their chances through runs of momentum both late in the second quarter and in the dying minutes of the game in attempting to catch up to the Blue Devils.
Solid as Rock
Blue Devils coach John Danowski was proud of his team's effort against Delaware particularly of goalkeeper Mike Rock's play in stepping in as a starter after 15-game starter Dan Wigrizer was ruled unable to play due to a concussion. Rock found out late in the week that he was going to start and was ready to take on the challenge to help his team advance to the quarter-finals. "It's a playoff game, big game, you know...last home game for my senior class, so I wanted to come out and play great for them." Rock's strong performance earned him his third career NCAA tournament win and will provide Danowski a viable option to consider in choosing a goalie for their next game against last year's NCAA finalist, the fourth-ranked Notre Dame Fighing Irish.
Preparing for the the Fighting Irish
In responding to the question of how his team has been preparing to defend their title through this year's tournament, it seemed that Coach D was taking a page from the book of another championship coach at Duke, Coach K, in his response which included a subtle, low-key approach with a dose of reality blended in.
"You know, I think the beauty of coaching and why we do what we do, is that every year is different and that makes it so much fun. Every team is different. Every team has it's own personality, it's own dynamic and expectations. I think here, we don't know...and the beauty is that we came into the game today thinking that we could lose, and it's going to be be all over.
There's reality. Going into next week it's the same thing. We have to get through graduation, a little thing called graduation, and once we go through that tomorrow, we'll get back to work on Monday and see what we have and what Notre Dame looks like. Everybody's excited to keep playing at this time of year..nobody wants to go home..everybody wants to stay and keep playing and let's just see what can happen. That's the beauty of it, that we don't know what's going to happen." - John Danowski, Duke Blue Devils lacrosse coach.
After a tremendous downpour of rain came over the stadium before both teams came out for pre-game warm-ups, the sky opened up with a tremendous amount of sunlight as supporters for both teams slowly filed into the stands. Though the field was saturated with water it did not keep the Blue Devils from establishing firm control of the game early on. Duke's offense unleashed a scoring barrage on Delaware goalkeeper Noah Fossner that put them ahead 6-1 after the first quarter of play. However, throughout the game, the Blue Hens narrowed the Blue Devils lead to as little as 9-8 in the second quarter and later to 15-14 late in the fourth quarter, until the game clock counted down to secure the closely-contested game in Duke's favor.
A game of spurts
"Everything they did, they executed very well," Delaware coach Bob Shillinglaw said of the Blue Devils offense. In responding to the hole that they were in early in the first half, the Blue Hens' top scorer of the game, Grant Kaleikau, described his team's comebacks as resulting from keeping a positive attitude as learned from past experiences. "We've been in situations before, I think we were down five goals to Towson, down five goals to Drexel, and you know we've been there before so that helped." Shillinglaw and Kaleikau both pointed out how lacrosse is a game of spurts and how their team got their chances through runs of momentum both late in the second quarter and in the dying minutes of the game in attempting to catch up to the Blue Devils.
Solid as Rock
Blue Devils coach John Danowski was proud of his team's effort against Delaware particularly of goalkeeper Mike Rock's play in stepping in as a starter after 15-game starter Dan Wigrizer was ruled unable to play due to a concussion. Rock found out late in the week that he was going to start and was ready to take on the challenge to help his team advance to the quarter-finals. "It's a playoff game, big game, you know...last home game for my senior class, so I wanted to come out and play great for them." Rock's strong performance earned him his third career NCAA tournament win and will provide Danowski a viable option to consider in choosing a goalie for their next game against last year's NCAA finalist, the fourth-ranked Notre Dame Fighing Irish.
Preparing for the the Fighting Irish
"You know, I think the beauty of coaching and why we do what we do, is that every year is different and that makes it so much fun. Every team is different. Every team has it's own personality, it's own dynamic and expectations. I think here, we don't know...and the beauty is that we came into the game today thinking that we could lose, and it's going to be be all over.
There's reality. Going into next week it's the same thing. We have to get through graduation, a little thing called graduation, and once we go through that tomorrow, we'll get back to work on Monday and see what we have and what Notre Dame looks like. Everybody's excited to keep playing at this time of year..nobody wants to go home..everybody wants to stay and keep playing and let's just see what can happen. That's the beauty of it, that we don't know what's going to happen." - John Danowski, Duke Blue Devils lacrosse coach.
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