A lot can happen in two weeks without games—seniors took their final exams of college and goalie Dan Wigrizer even suffered a concussion in practice.
After so much time off, converting regular season momentum into a playoff push is very tricky.
“You’re always concerned with finals, seniors graduating, freshmen finishing up their first year—after having a layoff, there was certainly a concern that we could have lost that edge,” head coach John Danowski said.
But on Saturday, the fifth-seeded Blue Devils (13-5) had no problem finding that “edge” and shook off their rust behind backup goalie Mike Rock to defeat eleventh-seeded Delaware (11-7) at Koskinen Stadium, 15-14.
Duke set the tone early, scoring two goals within the game’s first 90 seconds. Junior midfielder Robert Rotanz put away the first goal unassisted, while Tom Montelli added the second on a dish from David Lawson. The Blue Devils extended their lead to 5-0 with goals from Josh Offit, Jake Tripucka and Jordan Wolf.
“We really came out and were ready to play,” Danowski said.
Despite Duke’s quick start, though, the Blue Hens refused to go down without a fight. After Wolf netted his third goal of the game to extend the Blue Devils’ lead to 9-3 – the largest margin they would have all night – Delaware rallied to finish out the first half, scoring four consecutive goals.
The Blue Hens narrowed Duke’s lead to one with a man-up goal to begin the third period, but the streaky Blue Devils quickly responded. The offense came back with four consecutive goals to open the game back up to five, seemingly putting it away.
In the fourth period, however, Delaware mounted its second and final rally. In the game’s final four minutes, the Blue Hens scored four goals to bring the game within one, with the last one coming with 16 seconds remaining.
While the game was high scoring, with Zach Howell’s four goals highlighting the offense, Duke relied heavily on Rock. The senior, thrown into the mix after Wigrizer’s concussion, had started just only started three games all season, but earned his third career NCAA playoff victory with the win.
“He did an amazing job when you consider not only the demands of the position physically—the ability to focus for two hours—and the fact that he hadn’t been in those situations [this year],” Danowski said. “So, really he did an incredible job and we’re really proud of [Rock].”
And even though they could eke out the victory behind their backup goalie, the Blue Devils know they will have to be far more consistent in other aspects of their game to advance further in the tournament. Duke demonstrated its own offensive prowess in various bursts, but the team allowed four unanswered goals in both the second and fourth periods—a recipe for disaster against elite teams.
“I think we needed to manage the ball better in the fourth quarter and make some better decisions in the fourth quarter,” Danowski said. “Defensively, I think we were a little bit too aggressive and our guys should have recognized the unsettled situations a little bit better, and then offensively I think our decisions with the ball could have been a little bit smarter and helped us defensively.”
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