Chronicle Coverage: Lacrosse Gamers

Usually, we print our summer stories every Thursday, when the summer editions hit newstands. But here's a treat to coincide with the launching of dukechroniclesports.com: a sneak preview of the men's and women's lacrosse game stories that will appear in the newspaper Thursday. Before the national media descends on Foxborough Mass., and Towson Md., to cover the men's and women's Final Fours, respectively, we thought we'd offer up the stories from the writers who have covered the teams from their first game: The Chronicle's beat reporters. Here are the most interesting quotes from both stories:

Stay tuned to The Chronicle online and The Chronicle's Sports Blog this week as we bring you game stories, analysis pieces and a steady stream of blog posts from Foxborough, where we'll have two reporters and two photographers, and Baltimore, where we'll have one of each.

• GREER LEADS DUKE TO FINAL FOUR: "I guess that's part of their game plan. They were yelling and jawing at us," Ned Crotty said of Ohio State's pregame taunts. "Obviously, it didn't work. We went up 9-1 in the first quarter, and it's kind of tough to talk smack after you're down like that."

• BLUE DEVILS UPSET MARYLAND TO ADVANCE IN NCAA TOURNAMENT: "This Final Four definitely means a lot. Not a lot more, but it's very gratifying to know that we really had to work to get here," junior goalkeeper Kim Imbesi said. "We had an up-and-down season. We're a very young team, we had to play our first two games on the road against very difficult teams, and just knowing that we can come together as a team is such a great feeling."

--by Ben Cohen