FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Some have tabbed it one of the biggest upsets in college lacrosse history. But perhaps Duke's loss to Johns Hopkins in the NCAA semifinals shouldn't have come as such a shock.
After all, despite the blowouts and the records, the Blue Devils had lost once before this season to a mediocre Georgetown team that didn't even make the tournament. That defeat, which had started to look like an annoying blemish on what promised to be an otherwise perfect season, proved to be an omen.
The Hoyas were overmatched in every way, and so were the Blue Jays. Duke boasted one of the most feared offensive units in history, but Georgetown and Johns Hopkins managed to hold the Blue Devils under the 10-goal mark. Against its 18 other opponents this season, head coach John Danowski's high-flying offense averaged 16 goals per contest.
"I've said it all along. [Duke has] as good an offensive team that we've seen all year long, and that we've coached against," Johns Hopkins head coach Dave Pietramala said. "They can score goals in so many ways."
But Saturday, the Blue Jays let Duke score only one way-from it's six-on-six offensive set. John Danowski stressed throughout the season that six-on-six is the hardest way to tally goals. He recognized this weakness in his offense and worked on it every day in practice.
Then, at halftime, Duke had just two goals against a Johns Hopkins squad it absolutely decimated only two months earlier.
If Georgetown found the key to beating Duke, Johns Hopkins merely duplicated it.
Long offensive possessions and strong faceoff play was certainly necessary for the big upset. But most importantly, the Blue Jays implemented a riding tactic that forced the Blue Devils to play slow, six-on-six offense. They prevented Duke from ever really getting into its fast-paced transition attack.
Typically, on a turnover or a saved shot, an attackman will become a defender and try to regain possession by pressuring the ball. Instead, Johns Hopkins conceded the ball to the Blue Devils but then stood along the midline and defended the outlet pass. Countless times this season, Loftus or defenseman Nick O'Hara lobbed the ball up to a midfielder, who rushed it up and fed it to one of Duke's talented attackmen, who stuffed it into the net from a few yards out, all before the opposing defense could even catch their breath.
After the game, attackman Max Quinzani called it "crashing the hole." The Blue Jays simply called it their ticket to the finals.
"It slowed us down," Quinzani said. "We got anxious, started throwing it cross-crease. Usually, I'm sitting there on the back door. But we were just forcing it. Period."
The deadly trio of Quinzani, Zack Greer and Matt Danowski, who had combined for nine goals and five assists per game going into the weekend, was virtually silenced. Greer, the NCAA's all-time leading goal scorer, notched one marker. Danowski, the NCAA's all-time leading scorer, didn't score until the fourth quarter. Quinzani was effectively neutralized by the Johns Hopkins defense.
Throughout the spring, opposing defenses have struggled to quiet this historic offense with a variety of different schemes. Some tried shutting off Greer in hopes of surviving Danowski and the rest of the offense. Some tried it the other way around. Some dared to think they could run with these Blue Devils-effectively the opposite of Johns Hopkins' tactic-and paid for it dearly (see: Ohio State's 21-10 loss in the quarterfinals.)
But some tried to slow Duke down by playing keeping away and utilizing a conservative riding game. Georgetown and Johns Hopkins weren't the only ones to do it this season-they were just the only ones who did it well enough to win.
And as a result, Danowski and his four fellow fifth-year seniors were left disappointed and disheartened. The leaders of one of college lacrosse's most epic teams fell to a squad who simply managed to expose its Achilles' heel at the worst possible time.
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