Well here it is the men’s lacrosse division I national championship game. From the start of the season in February with plenty of snow still left on the ground to the now warm weather in Baltimore we are finally down to two teams. For the first since 1992 when the Princeton Tigers won their first national championship, a school will win the championship for the first in there school’s history. The two teams featured are 5th seeded Duke and unseeded Notre Dame; this is the first time since UMass in 2006 that an unseeded team has made the national championship game. This is Duke’s 3rd appearance in the championship game, first since 2007 when they lost 11-10 to Johns Hopkins, for the Fighting Irish this is their first appearance in the championship game. Notre Dame beat Duke in February earlier this season by a score of 11-7 in Durham. This game will feature to different offensive styles and whichever team can control the game with their offense will play a big factor into which team will win.
Let’s start with the unseeded Notre Dame Fighting Irish; Rudy should be proud of this underdog team from South Bend. The Irish ended the regular season by losing 3 of the 5 final games and finished the regular season with a record of 7-6. Despite the Duke win being the only signature win of the season for the Irish, Notre Dame still received an at large bid to the dance. And as the saying goes “all you have to do is make the playoffs to win it all” has proven true for this team as they beat Princeton at Princeton and a heavily favored Maryland team to make it to Baltimore this year. In the semi final game against Cornell, Norte Dame used a defense first mentality to beat a highly motivated Big Red team. The Irish rode the hot goal tending of senior goal tender Scott Rodgers as he made 16 saves and 8 saves in the 4th quarter in the win over the Big Red. The defensive in front of Rodgers did a great job on Cornell’s offensive stars as they held both Ryan Hurley and Rob Pannell to just 2 goals apiece for both players. Good thing the Notre Dame defense is firing on all cylinders as a unit right now because this defensive unit will face another pair of great offensive players in Duke’s Max Quinzani and Ned Crotty who combined for 7 points in their win over UVA on Saturday. Rodgers needs to remain hot in net and the defense in front of him needs to slow down Quinzani and Crotty for Notre Dame to come out on top. Duke went on a run of 7 straight goals in there win over UVA the Irish cannot allow a run like that to happen against them on Monday. On the offensive side of the ball, Neal Hicks and Zach Brenneman need to show up once again on Monday as they combined for 7 out of the 12 goals Notre Dame scored on Saturday. Notre Dame needs to turn this into a half field game as they run a ball control offense. If the Irish get down big early or let in a late run of goals by Duke, Notre Dame will not win this game with that ball control offense that normally chews up a lot of time on the clock. On the other hand; if Notre Dame gets up big they can use that ball control offense to chew off time and keep the ball out of Quinzani’s and Crotty’s sticks to lead them to victory.
Duke comes in with a record of 12-4 in the regular season, Dukes 4 losses came to all 3 ACC teams and of course there opponent Notre Dame. That 11-7 loss to Notre Dame was only the team’s second game of the season so there might still have been some extra snow on the Blue Devils sticks at the time, but since then Duke has been one of the top teams all spring long. Duke’s road to the championship game includes wins over Johns Hopkins, rival North Carolina and Saturday’s semi final win over UVA, in one of the best games of the tournament. In the game against the Cavaliers, the Duke defense was able to limit the Bratton brothers to just 2 points combined, but allowed Steele Stanwick and Brian Carroll to have 5 goals in the game. The Duke defense will only have to worry about Notre Dame’s Neal Hicks and Zach Brenneman on the defensive end. Even though the Blue Devils defense allowed Stanwick and Carroll to score goals, they were able to shut down the very athletic and very skilled Bratton brothers by having the slides leave earlier than usual when they had the ball. This is very impressive and if Duke’s defense plays like this again it should be an easy day on this end of the field for Duke. On the offensive side once again the ball we go through Max Quinzani and Ned Crotty who had 5 goals combined on Saturday. Both players were on the team during Duke’s 2007 loss to Hopkins in the championship game and would love for their last game in a Duke uniform to be Duke’s first championship. That will happen if Duke can get there fast paced offense going and turn this game into a track meet this should be Duke’s day. If Duke gets down by 3 or 4 goals on Monday they should not panic as they went on a 7 straight goal run against UVA and the face paced offense means that Duke can make up a 3 or 4 goal deficit quickly. However, if they are down by 2 goals with under a minute left Notre Dame’s ball control offense will not help Duke as the Irish will most likely just pass the ball around the box for the final minute of the game with a lead, if this happens the Duke defensive unit has to remain patient and not commit a slashing or checking penalty when trying to win the ball back.
I cannot believe this, but I’m picking Duke to win this game even though I will be cheering for the Irish at M & T Bank on Monday. In the end I just think Duke’s fast paced offense will be too much for Notre Dame, remember Duke’s seniors were on the team during the 2007 championship game loss and they would love for nothing more to be remembered as the first national championship team at Duke. Duke wins 10-6, Max Quinzani has a big day en route to the championship.
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