Maryland dominant in NCAA lacrosse semifinal against Duke
The Duke men’s lacrosse team came to New England with the hopes of bringing home its fourth national title and first since 2014.
It’s taking home its most one-sided NCAA tournament loss in more than a decade.
Former ACC rival Maryland smothered the second-seeded Blue Devils 14-5 before 13,707 at Rentschler Field on Saturday, bringing a jarring end to a year in which Duke was viewed as a national title contender from the start.
It was the Blue Devils’ most lopsided postseason loss since a 17-7 defeat against Syracuse in the 2009 semifinals, and was Duke’s smallest output in an NCAA tournament game since a 9-4 loss to Maryland in the 2011 semifinals. It was also the fewest goals Duke scored in any game since a 13-5 defeat against Notre Dame in 2013.
“At the end of the day, we couldn’t really run past anybody from Maryland,” Duke coach John Danowski said. “Maryland’s short sticks were terrific. They bluffed us out of a lot of dodges. You have to tip your cap. I don’t know if it was so much we didn’t play well. Maybe it was that Maryland played great.”
Tewaaraton Award finalist Michael Sowers had two goals on eight shots for the Blue Devils (14-3). Dyson Williams also scored twice for Duke.
Jared Bernhardt had five goals and two assists for the third-seeded Terrapins (15-0), who will play in the national title game for the sixth time since 2011. Logan McNaney made 17 saves for Maryland.
The prospect of an all-North Carolina final faded earlier in the day, when North Carolina fell 12-11 to Virginia. But unlike the plucky Tar Heels, who nearly erased a five-goal deficit, the Blue Devils were outmatched from the latter stages of the second quarter to the end.
Duke never led, but pulled within 4-3 on Sowers’ goal with 5:20 remaining in the first half. But four different Terps scored to close out the quarter, and Maryland tacked on the first three goals of the second half to further pull away.
“Each sequence in the game is up and down, and each team goes on runs,” defensive midfielder Terry Lindsay said. “We weren’t backing down when that happened.”
Duke endured a scoring drought of 20:12 that covered parts of the second and third quarters, then went nearly another 15 minutes before Sowers collected his second goal with 20 seconds remaining.
Sowers, a graduate transfer from Princeton, was one of several players Duke added during the offseason. Goalie Mike Adler (11 saves against Maryland) was a key pickup from Saint Joseph’s, and attackman Brennan O’Neill (one goal on five shots) was considered one of the top freshmen in the country.
Duke also got Joe Robertson, who scored the game-winner in overtime against Loyola in the quarterfinals, back from a knee injury that cost him the truncated 2020 season.
Even though the Blue Devils entered the weekend with the third-best scoring average at 14.8 goals, there was always a sense Duke was constantly trying to make its offense fit together. Still, the Blue Devils never struggled to the degree they did Saturday.
“The offense never really found its place,” Danowski said. “We weren’t very good in transition throughout the year, and today was an example. We had a couple of opportunities in transition and it was just hard to find that right balance and that right chemistry. It was very difficult. It was good enough to get to this point, but certainly it’s something I thought we struggled with all year.”
The Blue Devils will look different next year without Sowers, who had 37 goals and 44 assists in his lone year at Duke and finished his career with 383 points, the second most in Division I history. The legacy of this year’s team will be adding another Memorial Day weekend appearance, the program’s 13th overall and 11th in Danowski’s 15-year tenure.
“I’m just really proud of the guys in that locker room,” Lindsay said. “Being a fifth year, coming back, I just wanted to be back with this team and this coaching staff. I couldn’t be more proud of how we fought through everything this year.”
This story was originally published May 29, 2021 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Maryland dominant in NCAA lacrosse semifinal against Duke."