CHAPEL HILL - At no point Sunday did head coach John Danowski think it was going to be easy for Duke to win the ACC championship.
It had to play North Carolina at Kenan Stadium, a site as neutral as Ford Field was for Michigan State in the men's basketball Final Four.
Right out of the gate, the Blue Devils trailed 2-0, and at halftime they were knotted up with the Tar Heels at eight.
And even near the end, a five-goal lead proved shaky as North Carolina (11-5) closed to within two with over a minute left.
But despite it all, Duke-which at one point found itself with a 2-2 record, including a loss to Harvard-bounced back and accomplished a program first-winning three consecutive ACC championships.
A critical defensive stretch over the third and early fourth periods enabled the Blue Devils to break open a tie game en route to a 15-13 victory in the ACC championship game Sunday afternoon.
Duke (12-3) had advanced to the title game by dominating Virginia 16-5 Friday evening.
"What a difficult tournament to play in three days," Danowski said. "We're honored and humbled to have won this tournament."
Through 30 minutes of play, the Blue Devils had given up eight goals-three more than they allowed all game against the Cavaliers. In fact, they had already allowed five before the first period ended.
A large part of that had to do with North Carolina aggressively attacking on offense, outshooting Duke 20-14 in the opening half. The Blue Devils failed to clear the ball six times in that timeframe and incurred three 20-second calls, a season high.
Danowski said there didn't need to be any drastic changes-the team just needed to clear the ball more effectively. When it did, it outscored the Tar Heels 3-1 in the third period, but perhaps more importantly, dominated time of possession.
"Those attackmen are bears to cover," North Carolina head coach Joe Breschi said. "The strength for them was having the ball and not having to play defense. It wore us down in the third quarter because we were playing defense so much. When we had the ball, we got good opportunities."
But those opportunities were rare as the sweltering heat tired out the Tar Heels, who scored only two goals in the first 23 minutes of the second half. Both came on man-down situations when their attackmen managed to split Duke defenders for open shots.
North Carolina got a series of opportunities late, though, and capitalized. Moments after Steve Schoeffel's great spin move led to Duke's 15th score with 6:53 left, the Tar Heels' Sean Delaney, who led his team with three goals, tallied for the last time on the day to cut the deficit to four.
North Carolina then added two more goals in under a minute, and suddenly, with 1:40 left, Duke's 15-10 lead had been cut to 15-13.
The Tar Heel faithful rose and cheered loudly, and with just over 10 seconds left, Bart Wagner ripped a shot from the left side that would have cut the margin to one, potentially setting up a last-second chance for overtime.
But his shot caromed wide right, and the Blue Devils clinched the title by forcing a turnover on the ensuing possession.
Freshman defender C.J. Costabile won tournament Most Valuable Player honors, finishing with three goals, an unusually high number for a defenseman.
Afterwards, senior Ned Crotty called it the most satisfying conference championship of the three he has won in his career.
"Before this year, we were always right at the top," he said. "But now, to look back at where we were and see the year we've had-it was a grind all year."
And that grind paid dividends Sunday, as Duke found a way to win on a not-so-neutral field against an inspired opponent.
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