Fab 5 leads Duke against Wildcats

Five. A relatively meaningless digit, but for No. 2 Duke (1-0) it is a mark of distinction. Five Blue Devils have been named to the preseason watchlist for the Tewaaraton trophy, an award presented annually to the best player in the nation.

Duke's five potentials are attackers Matt Danowski and Zack Greer, midfielders Nick O'Hara and Matt Zash and defenseman Tony McDevitt. The five join the rest of a talented and self-titled "veteran team" to take on Villanova (1-0) Saturday at 3 p.m. in Koskinen Stadium.

"One of the secrets to last year is that we never got ahead of ourselves," head coach Mike Pressler said. "We just took it one play at a time, one day at a time, one game at a time. And that's the plan again this year."

That strategy certainly worked in the Blue Devils' last game, the team's season opener at home against Butler. Zash scored Duke's first goal of the season, and the Blue Devils followed with six more before the Bulldogs could retaliate. Senior Kyle Dowd scored a career-high four goals as Duke won, 20-3, Feb. 18.

The Blue Devils also secured 18 of 26 face-offs against Butler, with junior Dan Oppedisano winning 9 of 11 draws. After winning less than half of its face-offs last season, Duke made it a priority to improve in that department this year.

"I thought we came out with good levels of intensity and aggressiveness," Pressler said after the game. "For a first game, we played pretty well, but we have a lot of areas to improve. We'll take this one and move on to next week against a very good Villanova team."

The Wildcats did not advance to the NCAA tournament last year and will face Duke for the first time since 2003. In that match-up, the Blue Devils won, 6-5.

Villanova began its season with an 11-6 win over the Air Force. Nova held a 14-6 faceoff advantage and went on two 3-0 runs and a 4-0 run to dominate the Falcons.