In its third game of the season on March 8, the third-ranked men's lacrosse team suffered a heartbreaking defeat to Brown, giving up a late goal in regulation time, missing a few solid scoring opportunities in overtime, then allowing a goal in overtime to lose 9-8.
Saturday's 8-7 double-overtime win against No. 12 Massachusetts at Duke Lacrosse Stadium showed just how far the Blue Devils (7-1, 2-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) play late in games has progressed since then. Freshman midfielder Jared Frood, who had the best overtime scoring chance in the loss to Brown, scored with 3:35 to play in the second overtime period to give the Blue Devils the victory, their fourth one-goal win of the season.
"I had the same exact chance in the Brown game, but unfortunately, the Brown goalie stopped it," Frood said. "It was like d*j^ vu, but fortunately, this time it went in."
Blue Devil sophomore middie Scott Diggs won the opening faceoff in the second overtime but soon lost control of the ball. Freshman attackman Chris Kakel scooped up the ball and called a timeout, despite vehement arguments from the Minutemen that he did not fully have possession.
Senior midfielder Jim Gonnella took the ball out of the timeout and went to work on the UMass defender, finding a crease in the defense, then connecting with Frood for the winning goal.
"The guy lined up so far to my right because I just gave him a hard step right then came left, and he bit the fake," Gonnella said. "Everybody slid and Jared popped open like he usually does and banged it home."
The winning goal came on the heels of a frantic three-goal fourth quarter comeback by Duke, necessitated by its subpar opening to the game. After the first quarter ended with the score tied at two, the next two quarters were all UMass.
The Minutemen jumped out to a 3-2 lead on a goal by middie Mike DelPercio 2:08 into the second quarter. Diggs scored his second goal of the day on a man-up opportunity at the 6:28 mark in the second quarter to knot the score at three.
Massachusetts then went on to control the game for the next 15 minutes, carrying over from the first to the second half. UMass middie Jim Kennedy quickly answered Diggs' goal 1:03 later to make the score 4-3. Kennedy then snuck in behind Duke senior goalie Joe Kirmser on a feed from Brendan Glass with 17 seconds remaining in the half to give the Minutemen a 5-3 halftime lead.
UMass picked up where it left off in the second half, controlling the pace of play and preventing the Blue Devils from executing offensively. When Duke did manage a good shot, goalie John Kasselakis came up with one of his 16 saves to stymie the Duke attackmen.
"UMass did a great job all game of really holding the ball on us and protecting their lead," Duke coach Mike Pressler said. "They're really good at sitting on the lead. We couldn't make them play from behind at all."
After nearly 10 minutes of scoreless play, the Minutemen built on their lead with 5:41 left in the third quarter when Jason Heinze followed a deflected shot in front of the net to give Massachusetts a 6-3 lead. Sophomore middie Adam Dretler ended Duke's scoreless stretch 34 seconds later when he put a shot over Kasselakis' left shoulder to reduce Duke's deficit to two.
However, DelPercio scored at the 1:31 mark in the period to raise Massachusetts' lead back to three, 7-4.
But after being outplayed in the previous two periods, the Blue Devils came out aggressively in the fourth quarter. With 10:35 remaining in the game, freshman middie Nick Hartofilis drove to the cage, jumped and threw the ball home to bring Duke within two. Just over two minutes later, junior John Fay scored his second goal of the day, driving right then spinning back to his left for the goal, as the Blue Devils appeared to be wearing down the tough UMass defense.
"Their defense is very good," Frood said. "I think the comeback had to do with the heat and the conditioning factor. I think they might have gotten a little more tired near the end of the game. We wore them down and got to their defense in the fourth quarter."
With the Minutemen on their heels, Gonnella completed the comeback, tying the game up with 6:45 remaining. The senior co-captain drove down the field, switching back and forth from his left to his right, then threw the ball past Kasselakis to tie it up.
Both teams tried unsuccessfully for the remainder of regulation and the first overtime period to get the game-winner. The Blue Devils got off a series of near-misses in the last two minutes of regulation time but were unable to get the ball between the pipes. UMass got the only close attempts in the first sudden-death overtime period, but Duke was able to thwart its efforts, and scored the game-winner in the second overtime period.
Despite the dramatic victory, Pressler and the Blue Devils were not completely satisfied. The Minutemen controlled the pace for much of the game, and it wasn't until late in the day that the Blue Devils finally found the answer. With a big home game against No. 2 Virginia to determine the ACC regular season title next Saturday, the Blue Devils are hoping to work through some of the mistakes they made against UMass.
"We showed a lot of heart and we played hard," Pressler said. "We didn't play well on offense. We didn't do the things we were coached to do all week, and we got out of our offensive game plan. I think UMass forced us to rush things because they held the ball so much. We're 7-1 and I feel great about that, but we've got to play better than this against Virginia, or things will be different."
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