Duke men's lacrosse heads to Jacksonville seeking bounce-back win

If former New York Yankee great Yogi Berra took one look at Duke this season, he might aptly proclaim, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

Through three games in 2015, the Blue Devils tallied 42 goals, sported wins against two unranked opponents and, as the No. 3 team in the nation, dropped a 17-13 thriller in the Cobb County Classic against No. 1 Denver.

So far, 2016 is eerily similar. Duke has recorded 42 goals in three games once again, knocked off two unranked teams to open the season and, as the then-No. 3 team, could not pull off an upset in Atlanta against the No. 2 Pioneers for the second straight year, falling 14-12 in a back-and-forth affair.

But with a new year come the lessons learned from a season ago.

“You learn from your experiences and the team grows as a result. Sometimes you forget how hard it is to be successful at this level and how hard you have to work and how disciplined you have to be [on] game day,” Duke head coach John Danowski said. “All that stuff makes sense as the season goes on and I think that as we look at where we’re at right now [after] three games, [we are] trying to figure out our chemistry, trying to grow as a group and just get better each week.”

The No. 5 Blue Devils will look to regroup from their first loss in similar fashion to last year’s campaign Saturday when they travel to Jacksonville, Fla., to take on Jacksonville at 1 p.m. at D.B. Milne Field. After last year’s defeat at the hands of Denver, Duke took a road trip to Macon, Ga., and dismantled Mercer 16-6 to kickstart five straight wins before opening conference play. This season, the squad will look to do the same following an early setback.

The rallying cry is likely to come out of the midfield for the Blue Devils (2-1) in their bounce-back effort this weekend. Senior midfielders Myles Jones and Deemer Class lead the team with 12 and 11 points, respectively, and have been the early source of the team’s offensive firepower. Although Class paces the team with nine goals, Jones’ six tallies this season leave him just one goal shy of becoming the first midfielder in program history to reach 100 for his career.

“[Jones and Class] have been in big games, they’ve been in situations where we’ve been up, they’ve been in situations where we’ve been down—it’s like in any organization, those are the guys that you look to because they’ve seen it all before,” Danowski said. “They know what it’s like to be on the field. They can calm younger guys down and inspire people at practice. When they get angry or they don’t like something and they have something to say during practice, it’s important for the younger guys to listen.”

The Dolphins (2-1) may not have three Major League Lacrosse draft picks in their starting lineup, but will still present some challenges for Duke at midfield. Senior Dakota Rohlin and sophomore faceoff specialist Hunter Forbes bolster Jacksonville’s midfield, but in different ways. In the Dolphins’ 8-7 victory against St. John’s Feb. 18, Rohlin recorded his second consecutive hat trick and his third straight game with three points to open the season.

At the faceoff X, Forbes will lead Jacksonville’s assault against the Blue Devils’ Kyle Rowe. In an evenly matched battle, Forbes has recorded 20 ground balls this season to Rowe’s 23, and is slightly less productive at the X with a 40-of-73 clip in comparison to the Duke junior’s 41-of-72 ledger.

“[Rohlin]’s certainly a dangerous player and we’ll certainly have to be aware of where he is playing man [and] when we play offense, but we also have to really put pressure on the other people,” Danowski said. “[The faceoff] is such an integral part of our sport. Not only do we place emphasis on our [faceoff men], but we place emphasis on our wing players as well, and that’s something that we’ve really been concentrating on.”

In order to lead the attack from the faceoff and out of the midfield, the Blue Devils will have to fare better than the Red Storm. The Dolphins won 13-of-19 faceoffs, were a perfect 17-for-21 on clear attempts and picked up eight more ground balls than their opponent in last week’s road win.

But if last season is any indication—Duke was 13-of-26 at the faceoff X, converted 23-of-25 clear opportunities and grabbed eight more ground balls in the bounce-back effort against Mercer—Danowski’s squad will be more than prepared to get back on track this weekend.