The men's lacrosse team may have graduated 13 seniors, including five all-Americans, but Saturday it played as if it didn't miss them at all.
In its first victory over a ranked team, No. 8 Duke (2-1) shellacked No. 13 Brown (0-2), 19-6, at Loyola's Curley Field in Baltimore.
"We've played some tough games against Brown before, and I definitely expected it to be a lot closer than it was," senior attackman John Fay said.
The Blue Devils took the reins early and never let go, scoring nine goals in the first quarter to the Bears' one. Tim Knowles opened up the scoring when he found the back of the nets just six seconds into the game for the first goal of his collegiate lacrosse career. Fifty-three seconds later, midfielder Scott Diggs hammered the ball home to put Duke up 2-0 with less than a minute expired on the clock.
Brown scored its lone first-quarter goal when Michael Monfett got the ball past Duke goaltender Craig Seyffer with 2:35 left in the period. Midfielder Jared Frood racked up three first-quarter goals, one with a man down, Nick Hartofilis netted back-to-back goals and Diggs added his second goal on the afternoon to lead the Blue Devils' searing offense.
"It was very important," Fay said of the early lead. "They like to go ahead and score down on us, but we stopped them from doing that. As soon as we were up, they had to play catch-up with us, and they couldn't."
Duke stretched its lead at halftime to 12-1 as Frood, Diggs and Adam Dretler scored one goal apiece in the second quarter. Frood led all scorers on the afternoon with six goals and one assist. Diggs and Fay each finished with three goals and an assist, and Hartofilis also amassed three goals.
In what had been touted as a battle between two highly untested goalies, the Duke attack kept the ball on Brown's end of the field, taking some of the pressure off Duke goalkeepers Seyffer and freshman Matt Breslin and keeping it on the Bears' defense.
"I think Craig and Matt are both playing really well," Fay said. "As for their goalie, we just got on him and took a lot more shots."
Seyffer proved his mettle between the pipes, only allowing three goals in 54 minutes of action. Brown netminder Strider Dickson recorded more saves than did Seyffer and backup goalie Matt Breslin combined, 20 to Duke's 14.
What made the difference for Duke was its ability to clear the ball, scrap for ground balls and remain on the offensive end of the field. The Blue Devils outshot the Bears, 47-36, picked up 40 ground balls to Brown's 36 and made 27 clears to Brown's 20.
"That's the way for us to play, is having the ball on offense and holding on to it," Fay said.
The Blue Devils will next face Atlantic Coast Conference rival North Carolina Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Chapel Hill.
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