Lacrosse Blogs

On Monday a new king will be crowned. In 38 years, there have only been 7 teams that have been crowned D1 champs. Every one of these seven teams has won at least two championships. Neither Duke nor Notre Dame have ever won the championship.

The two teams have met earlier this season with Notre Dame pulling out a big win 11-7.

Scott Rodgers and the Notre Dame defense held Duke to their lowest goal total of the year. They virtually shut down Ned Crotty who only had 2 assists.  

Notre Dame will have to rely on their tight defense and Scott Rodgers in net. Rodgers looked unstopable on Saturday against Cornell posting 73% saves (7Goals Against/16 Saves). Rodgers made some big saves early and got in Cornell’s heads a bit. Rodgers will have to come out and make some big early stops against a Duke team that is rolling on all cylinders. Duke has scored over 12 goals in every game since March 13. The starting attack of Max Quinzani, Zach Howell, and Ned Crotty combined for 7 goals against a good Virginia defense. 

 On the other end of the field, Duke’s defense needs to step it up big time if they want to win. Goalie Dan Wigrizer only stopped 35% of the shots he faced (13 Goals Against/7 Saves). Against Virginia, Duke’s defense played great in one quarter, and horrible the next. They will have their hands full with a Notre Dame offense that is surprisingly effective. Someone always steps up for Notre Dame in the playoffs. Against Princeton, David Earl scored 5 goals, against Maryland, Sean Rogers scored 3 goals, and against Cornell, Neal Hicks netted 4. Even if Duke is able to contain one of Notre Dame’s threats, somone will be there to pick up the slack.

 Attack: Advantage Duke by far. Their starting line has scored 140 goals this year.

Midfield: Advantage goes to Notre Dame. Duke has a slight edge on face offs (54.8% compared to ND’s 54.3%), but Notre Dame’s midfield can put up important goals.

Defense: No question Notre Dame has the better defense/goalie.

Notre Dame can’t compete at the speed of Duke. If Duke starts pushing the tempo and really peppering Scott Rodgers, they could pull away. The key will be to get their attack the ball and score early on Rodgers. Duke also needs to play better than they did against UVA. They need to watch the unforced turnovers.

Notre Dame needs to slow it down. Control the time of possession like they did earlier in the year, and they can pull out a win.

I am picking Notre Dame to win this one. Rodgers looks too good, and Duke looked too sloppy against Virginia.