Following his team's 11-7 loss to No. 3 Cornell Tuesday, Duke lacrosse head coach Mike Pressler described his attack unit as being out of sync and said he could not figure out why the No. 2 Blue Devils (6-2) have not gelled yet.
For a team that is used to scoring at will, Duke's play in the offensive zone has been highly uncharacteristic of late.
The team will look to Saturday's 1 p.m. matchup at Koskinen Stadium against No. 6 Georgetown (4-1) as a chance to try and get their offensive groove back.
"What we took away from the Cornell game is that we need to regain our sense of urgency," attacker Matt Danowski said. "We need to play hard and play like we're capable of playing. If we do that, I think we'll be fine."
Duke's lack of offensive production against ranked teams has figured greatly into its 0-2 record against top-five opponents. While the Blue Devils are averaging 16 goals per game against unranked opponents, they are only scoring an average of 7.7 goals per outing in three contests against teams ranked in the top 20.
Duke's output against top teams is down four goals from last season, when the Blue Devils averaged 11.7 goals per game against ranked opposition.
Although they are well aware of their recent scoring woes, the exact cause has remained an elusive mystery for them.
"I'm not quite sure [what's wrong]," Danowski said. "If I knew what was missing we'd probably have it fixed by now. We haven't gotten our transition going like we wanted to this year. We haven't been playing as a team, yet."
The Blue Devils look to turn around their production against a battle-tested Hoyas team that has won four games in a row, including three straight over ranked opponents.
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