SPECIALTY PROTECTION
WOMEN'S PROTECTIVE
On a bright sunny Baltimore Sunday, the Duke Blue Devils were taking on the defending ACC champion Maryland Terrapins. With the rain stopped and the sky blue, the fans in Baltimore were ready for one heck of a lacrosse game. and that’s exactly what they got. Duke came out firing and took an early 1-0 lead only 1:30 into the contest. Their first goal came on an early extra man opportunity when Kyle Dowd took a feed from Matt Danowski and stuck it in the top right corner.
After the first goal, Duke wanted to slow the game down and play their typical, very structured offense. With the tempo slow, and the time of possession in Duke’s favor, they were able to take a 2-0 lead when Dan Flannery took Danowski’s feed and placed it perfectly in that same top right corner. But much to Dukes dismay, that’s about all they were going to get from their offense on this afternoon. Although Duke has been nearly perfect all season with their only loss coming from Hopkins in OT, Maryland truly had their number. Maryland’s head defensive coach Dave Slafkosky came up with an amazing scheme and almost completely shut down the youthful and talented Duke offense. Duke continued to slow the game down using their inverted, slow tempo offense, but it just wasn’t their day.
All stemming from tremendous, hard nosed defense, and timely amazing saves by ACC Tourney MVP Harry Alford, the Maryland offense fired off six unanswered goals. Their first goal came on a play where Joe Walters avoided two Duke defenders and somehow found Jimmy Borell who scored on a hard high bounce shot. Both teams were playing great defense early on in the match, and the scored remained tied at 1 until 11:09 left in the second when Joe Walters scored the first goal of his hat trick. Joe Walters took a feed from Xander Ritz and snuck one by the very talented Duke senior goalie Aaron Fenton. Fenton had the save made, but only managed to get a piece of the ball, which trickled past his feet to even the score at 2-2.
Less than a minute later it would be Walters that struck again for the Terps. Maryland’s attackmen were riding hard and checked the ball from a Duke defenseman’s stick. Walters fumbling to gain control of the loose ball, almost lost it, but regained control, threw a quick fake and finished low past Fenton to take the lead for good. With the score stuck at 3-2 for nearly 20 minutes and already 9 minutes into the 3rd quarter, it seemed this was going to be tight low scoring affair, but then the Terps caught fire.
Maryland’s next goal came from Senior Andrew Schwartzman on a crafty right handed jump shot off an inverted dodge from behind the cage. A few minutes later Maryland had their first EMO opportunity. They capitalized when Xander Ritz found the wide open junior Captain Billy McGlone cutting through Duke’s Man Down defense. Maryland quickly became man up again and scored when Ian Healy picked up another deflected feed to McGlone and put it top shelf. Duke finally responded when its young gun Matt Danowski picked up a rebound and scored on a behind the back bounce shot for the afternoon’s sickest goal.
With Maryland leading 6-3, they were ready to put Duke away for good. Coming off a fast break opportunity, Maxwell Ritz picked up a loose ball and found the back of the net. Next goal came from Joe Walters who came around from behind to finish with a low left handed shot. Maryland's last goal came when Maxwell Ritz picked up another loose ball created by a scrambling Duke double team. Maryland was now up 9-3 with 2:42 remaining but Duke kept firing. The Blue Devil’s Peter Lamade scored on an underhand lefty rip coming off the feed from Matt Danowski to make it 9-4, but it was too little too late. Duke’s Dan Flannery scored again with 0:53 to close out the game’s scoring.. Maryland’s defense was too much for the Blue Devils this time holding the #2 team in the country to only 4 goals for the game. Maryland looks to be peaking at the right time of the year, avenging two of their losses by beating the #3 and #2 ranked teams in the country in one weekend.
| Scoring | |
|---|---|
| Matt Danowski | (1, 3) |
| Dan Flannery | (2, 0) |
| Matt Zash | (0, 1) |
| Peter Lamade | (1, 0) |
| Kyle Dowd | (1, 0) |
| Saves | |
|---|---|
| Aaron Fenton | 12 (0.571) |
| Current Record | |
|---|---|
| Duke | 14-2 |
