After barely sneaking into the ACC tournament, Duke fell just short of winning its eighth conference title.
Playing in their first ACC championship game since 2012, the No. 6 Blue Devils put in a valiant effort, but needed one more goal in the end, falling 15-14 to No. 4 Syracuse Sunday at PPL Park in Chester, Pa.
“We’re just really proud of our kids’ effort,” Duke head coach John Danowski said in his postgame press conference. “We didn’t back down, we didn’t give up and just kept fighting, and at the end of the day it was probably a lot of fun.”
After getting routed by the Orange (11-2) 19-7 at the Carrier Dome March 22, Duke (11-5) got off to a great start Sunday. The Blue Devils followed an early goal by Syracuse senior midfielder Nicky Galasso with five straight scores of its own to jump out to a 5-1 lead after 11 minutes.
The Orange stopped an 11:46 scoring drought with a goal by Hakeem Lecky before Duke freshman Justin Guterding added his first of two goals on the afternoon to give the Blue Devils a 6-2 lead after the first quarter.
Whatever momentum Duke had was lost quickly in the second quarter as Syracuse scored five goals in six minutes to erase the Blue Devil lead. Duke’s defense—which had been impressive for the entire semifinal game against No. 1 Notre Dame—disappeared early in the quarter and its breakdown would prove costly.
“Lacrosse is a game of runs,” junior midfielder Myles Jones said. “We made our run first, they made their run second, and we knew we were going to a get a run later in the game. We weren’t too worried, it’s the nature of the game and that’s kind of how the ball rolled.”
The Blue Devils stopped the bleeding as Guterding scored off an assist by Case Matheis, but that was the only sniff of the back of the net they would get the entire period. After shooting 6-of-8 in the first quarter, the team shot just 1-of-12 in the second. The Orange added two more scores before the end of the quarter to go into halftime with a 9-7 lead.
Duke started the scoring in the second half as Jones found sophomore Jack Bruckner to cut the Syracuse lead to one. The rest of the quarter was a back-and-forth affair as the Orange tried to extend their lead, but the Blue Devils stayed close.
With Syracuse leading 12-10 at the start of the fourth quarter, Jones pushed past his defender and fired a goal past the Orange’s Bobby Wardwell to cut the lead to 12-11. Despite concerns that the All-American would be slowed by stitched right hand, Jones played a crucial role in Duke’s comeback effort.
“It was crunch time and a lot of guys depend on me, being one of the older guys now,” Jones said. “I had to make my presence felt on the game.”
With less than seven minutes to play and the Blue Devils down 14-12, Duke was unable to capitalize on a two-man advantage as Jones fired wide of the goal and Syracuse won possession. The Orange scored on the ensuing trip downfield to extend the lead.
The Blue Devils did not go away quietly as they scored two goals in a 24-second span, including one by Jones where he bulldozed over Syracuse defender Tom Grimm and fired in his third goal of the game to cut the deficit to just one with 2:32 remaining.
Redshirt freshman Kyle Rowe—who had another excellent day at the faceoff X, winning 63.3 percent of his draws—won his 19th of the day to give Duke a chance to tie the game, but the team was unable to complete the comeback as Matheis fired wide in the closing seconds.
After losing three straight ACC games earlier in the season—the longest losing streak under Danowski—and having such a young roster, few would have chosen Duke to make it this far, let alone come just a goal short.
“We’re delighted with our improvement week to week,” Danowski said. “[We’re] disappointed obviously with losing today, but delighted that we fought in that second half.”
The Blue Devils will finish up finals before taking on Boston University Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Koskinen Stadium to close out the regular season.
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