Let the Ivory Tower topple.
After 13 days off, No. 6 Duke defeated No. 13 Harvard 21-14 for its first win against a ranked opponent this season with an aggressive offensive assault and hustle that resulted in 58 shots and 55 ground balls. Although the game was held on the West Campus turf fields due to the inclement weather of the past week, Duke stretched its home-winning streak to 19 games beneath the shadow of Koskinen Stadium and Kennedy Tower.
“You have to learn how to handle whatever it is—the weather—whatever situations come our way,” head coach John Danowski said. “We all want to play in Koskinen. That’s not easy handling that transition, but the guys handled that really well.”
Despite postponing the Stony Brook game last week as a result of more inclement weather, the Blue Devils (4-1) never missed a beat in finishing off the Crimson (1-1) with its relentless attack. With the first month of the season coming to a close, the young squad appears to be getting into a flow behind the plethora of young talent across the field.
Freshman Justin Guterding and sophomore Jack Bruckner propelled their team to a quick start in the first half, and provided a lot of early firepower to put Duke on top. Both attackmen registered hat tricks in the first 20 minutes of regulation, but would not cool down despite the frosty chill in the air.
By the end of the game, Guterding registered nine points—six goals and three assists—and Bruckner tallied five—four goals and one assist. Through the first month of the season the pair have 27 and 17 points, respectively.
For the freshman, it marks his second six-goal game in just five appearances in the blue and white.
“We’re just running our offense,” Guterding said. “[Our] coaches tell us just keep doing your job and we’ll get a lot of points.”
Although the younger Blue Devils had doubled up Harvard 10-5 with 4:11 left in the second period after a Guterding score, the visiting squad mounted a charge late in the first half to tighten up the score heading into the locker room 10-8. Three straight goals in the final 2:20 were a wake up call to the younger Blue Devils, who appeared to ride a little too high early.
“It looked easy and the guys are having fun, but there is this fine line between being confident and arrogant, thinking it’s going to continually always be that easy—it’s not,” Danowski said. “It’s hard to keep that focus and you have to learn to keep that focus.”
Coming out of the locker room, however, some of the more experienced Duke players provided a momentum boost that lit a fire under the offense and woke up the defense.
In the opening minute of the half, junior midfielder Myles Jones broke through four Harvard defenders unassisted and fired a bullet through the pipes into the back of the net that set the tempo for the rest of the game. Upperclassmen Deemer Class and Tanner Scott would also get into the action in the third period with one goal apiece, before turning it back over to their younger teammates to finish off the visiting Crimson with a strong 7-4 fourth period.
“In the first half it was more of the attack game,” Guterding said. “We were getting open looks, then eventually they are going to be like, ‘We have to watch out for the attack.’ Then Myles [Jones], Deemer [Class] and Chad [Cohan] were wide open.”
In addition to the offensive assault, the faceoff game was a major part of Duke’s success on the afternoon. In the first half alone the Blue Devils won 15 out of 21, despite three violations in the second period. By the end of the game, the disparity had risen to 27 out of 39 in favor of the home squad.
Senior Jack Rowe was unstoppable for the Blue Devils in the position, setting the offense up nicely by coming away with the ball more than 60 percent of the time. After sitting behind former standout Brendan Fowler, Rowe is now stepping up into his role nicely as the season progresses.
“Jack had an unbelievable day,” Guterding said. “Whenever we have the ball more than anyone else, I think we are going to be just fine.”
As Duke finishes the first month of the season, the sloppy turnover play that led to several transition goals for Harvard is one room for improvement. Although it is still early in the season, Danowski believes that it is an area that the team needs to communicate and work on as the season progresses.
“We gave up too many goals in transition,” Danowski said. “We probably gave up four goals in transition—two by their poles. That is something that we need to get better at and we need to work on.”
The Blue Devils will have the opportunity to work on transition with a quick turnaround, as they get back on the turf Sunday against Providence for their third multiple game weekend. Faceoff is set for 5 p.m.
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