Duke women's lacrosse ends NCAA tournament run with second-round loss to Maryland
By Jonathan Levitan | May 16, 2022Duke’s NCAA tournament run came to an end Sunday in College Park, Md., at the hands of the second-seeded Terrapins.
The independent news organization of Duke University
Duke’s NCAA tournament run came to an end Sunday in College Park, Md., at the hands of the second-seeded Terrapins.
It was the Battle of the Blue; Blue Devils versus Blue Jays. And when all was said and done, Duke proved that its blue was better.
With the hosting team decked out in visiting jerseys and holding one last chance to punch its ticket to the NCAA tournament, Friday’s game was a classic underdog tale. But not for Duke, which had its conference tournament run cut short due to a locked-in Notre Dame squad.
The frontier of sports analytics only became widely available recently through hobbyist and crowdsourced data. Using the website Lacrosse Reference, which analyzes college teams using metrics beyond the stat sheet, let’s dive into how we can use these numbers by looking at the Duke women’s lacrosse team.
In the final game of the regular season, No. 1 North Carolina showed that it still has Duke’s number, handling the fifth-ranked Blue Devils 18-4, securing the ACC regular-season title and the top seed in the upcoming conference tournament in the process.
The seventh-ranked Blue Devils hosted No. 2 Boston College Saturday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium, where the crew delivered a 16-15 upset against the defending national champions.
Nothing in the ACC comes easy. Road games are even harder. And Thursday night in Blacksburg, the Blue Devils came face-to-face with seeing their seven-game winning streak snapped.
With just under seven minutes left in the second period, No. 7 Duke trailed No. 16 Virginia 6-4. It seemed that every Blue Devil offensive possession was stunted with a foul or a turnover, and that they wouldn’t be able to compete with the Cavaliers. Until Katie DeSimone decided otherwise.
History. The undisputed draw control queen. Maddie Jenner, take a bow. To start the third quarter, Jenner broke a record. With the 513th draw control of her career and her 142nd of the season, Maddie moved into sole possession of the Duke program record.
DeSimone led Duke in the contest with four goals and one assist. Barry and senior Maddie Jenner followed in suit, with Barry scoring two goals and three assists and Jenner tallying three goals and 13 draw controls.
“Every year I'm like, ‘Oh it's not a big deal,’ and it is actually kind of hard because you want her to do well and I want her team to do really well but obviously this is a day where we want to make sure Duke prevails,” Kimel said after the game.
Maddie’s start to the season shows precisely the playing ability that she’s developed over the years. As a senior leader wearing the same shoes as her sister Olivia wore three years ago, Maddie is going nowhere but up.
Coming out of halftime leading 17-4, Duke was in much the same position that they were coming out of halftime on Friday: maintain the 10-goal lead to keep the clock running, avoid injury, and get as much of the team involved as possible. And they were able to do just that.
“I was not expecting that kind of atmosphere and it was awesome,” said Duke head coach Kerstin Kimel. “
Determined to become a perennial contender, coach Kerstin Kimmel brought in an incredible recruiting class that features six US All-Americans.
After making a run to the Elite Eight in their first NCAA tournament since 2016 last season, this year’s Blue Devils have their eyes set on even bigger goals—they want to win it all.
Exactly four years since they first took the field in that big win against Elon, the fifth-year students will compete in the home-opener against Gardner-Webb. The Blue Devils have a lot of goals for what’s to come this season, but one of the main things they want to do is enjoy it on their terms.
For the first 10 minutes, it looked like Duke was going to blow past undefeated Northwestern. But lacrosse is a game of runs, and the Blue Devils found themselves on the wrong side of one.
When the final buzzer sounds, it doesn’t matter who had the momentum—all that matters are the numbers on the scoreboard. And for Duke, it was basic math: 13 is greater than 12.
In their first NCAA tournament game since 2016, the Blue Devils left no doubt in anyone’s mind as to why they came in as the No. 7 seed.