One more to go.
Just 60 minutes separate top-seeded Duke from its second consecutive national championship. To earn it, the Blue Devils will have to beat sixth-seeded Notre Dame Monday at 1 p.m. at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
The last program to repeat as champions was Syracuse, which accomplished the feat in 2008 and 2009. A Memorial Day victory against the Fighting Irish would also be Duke's third championship in the last five years—the Blue Devils (16-3) captured the 2010 title, also played in Baltimore.
The confidence from having done this all before could be an important asset for Duke's title hopes.
"You know, I'm not sure yet for this team until you talk to them and look at them and listen to them. But I don't think it hurts for sure," Duke head coach John Danowski said about his team's mental preparation following Saturday's win against Denver. "That's the thing you worry about in these big venues and the big stadiums that guys will be a little bit star struck, and I thought the younger guys really did a nice job [Saturday]."
Duke's road to the championship game has been largely dominant. The nation's second-highest-scoring offense at 15.06 goals per game is averaging 18 per contest in postseason action, and the Blue Devils enter Monday's matchup having won 12 of their last 13 contests.
That one loss may have made all the difference. Duke led Syracuse 14-10 with 13:38 remaining in an ACC tournament semifinal, but could not salt away the game, giving up a game-winning goal with one second left.
"Losing to Syracuse probably in some ways has helped us a lot in that we know there's no lead that's safe, and you've got to keep playing for 60 minutes," Danowski said. "Advancing in the tournament, you gather all this experience."
Saturday's experience was important for Duke in that it learned that it can still score in bunches even without the services of senior attackman Josh Dionne, who is out for all of championship weekend with a knee injury. His replacement, junior Kyle Keenan, stepped up in a big way for the Blue Devils, scoring a career-high four times on as many shots, including two critical goals to turn the momentum of the game back in Duke's favor.
When Denver threatened to storm back into the game, the Blue Devils relied on experience and calmness to make sure that didn't happen. That even-keel mentality, a function of experience, will help the Blue Devils to stay strong in the face of a Notre Dame run Monday.
"We always kept our composure, and we just had this sense about the team that we were going to push back and make a little run there," Keenan said. "We were just very calm, especially on offense, and I think that's why we were able to stop their run."
Notre Dame (12-5) will be looking to play spoiler for the second game in a row, after sending home Maryland from the quarterfinals in front of a pro-Terrapin crowd at M&T Bank Stadium Saturday. That role suits the Fighting Irish just fine, according to head coach Kevin Corrigan.
"It's kind of funny, I read the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun [Saturday], and neither one of them, I think they talked more about the Duke?Maryland match?up than they did the Maryland?Notre Dame match?up," Corrigan said. "I said, 'Okay, that's fine with us. We like being those guys."'
One player the Blue Devils will be hawking all day Monday is attackman Matt Kavanaugh, who torched Duke for a combined 11 points in the two meetings between the teams last season. The sophomore leads the team with 40 goals and 32 assists on the season, and beat the Terrapins time and again for five goals and two assists Saturday to help the Fighting Irish advance to the championship game.
When the Blue Devils traveled to South Bend, Ind., in March, they were able to completely neutralize Kavanaugh. Marked most of the afternoon by Henry Lobb, Notre Dame's go-to offensive threat was held without a point and attempted just two shots in Duke's 15-7 road victory. With the eyes of the Blue Devil defenders on a constant swivel, Kavanaugh was frustrated and pressured into four turnovers. Danowski will be looking for a repeat performance against Kavanaugh Monday afternoon with a national championship on the line.
"We try to defend a whole team, and you want to limit or reduce, not limit, but reduce his touches where you can," Danowski said. "You can't let their team run.... While you want to defend him individually, you want to make sure that you're sliding to him, that you're driving him to certain areas on the field and that you're ready to help, whether that's from the inside or from the perimeter. And so we always have to be mindful of where he is."
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