D.C. trip serves as measuring stick

The Blue Devils travel north to our nation’s capital this weekend to face No. 10 Georgetown in an intriguing nonconference matchup that will serve as an indicator of how far this team has come after enduring a tough start to the season. No. 7 Duke (5-3) is riding a three-game winning streak during which the team is beginning to click on both the offensive and defensive ends of the field. One of those wins was an impressive grind-it-out performance against a top-10 Loyola team, while the other two wins were blowouts against lesser opponents in Penn State and Dartmouth in which the attack unit readily got the chance to get out and make plays in transition. However, the Blue Devils have not always had this sweet a taste in their mouths. After entering the season among the nation’s top-ranked teams, Duke suffered a couple of unexpected losses, albeit to perennial lacrosse powers Maryland and North Carolina and an up-and-coming program in Notre Dame. The Tar Heels and Terrapins are currently ranked third and fourth in the country, respectively. “Coming into the season, a lot of people assumed things would happen because of our experience,” senior captain Ned Crotty said. “Once it didn’t, we took positives from the negatives and learned what we had to do better and are now executing.” The Blue Devils are especially experienced on the offensive end, as the four leading scorers from the previous year’s Final Four team all returned to Durham for another campaign. Yet Crotty noted that even with all of the experience among the offense’s top performers, it still took game action for the group to fully develop its chemistry. The 15-goal outburst against Dartmouth in which seven different Blue Devils found the back of the net is a perfect example of the depth and offensive potential that this squad possesses. Making the offensive barrage particularly impressive was the fact that the Big Green stayed in a zone for entire game, forcing Duke into its more methodical zone offense, a style that it prefers not to play. “The Penn Sate game is the style people would expect when they think of Duke lacrosse,” Crotty said. “It was all about transition and getting up and down the field. We like to play fast.” In the Hoyas (4-2), the Blue Devils face a team that likes to play the uptempo game just as much as they do. Georgetown features some of the country’s more prolific offensive talents in Andrew Brancaccio, Travis Comeau and Rickey Mirabito,. “They have the ability to score lots of goals,” Duke head coach John Danowski said. “They have some guys that can really shoot it from the top—lots of firepower.” Another facet of the game in which the coaching staff has observed considerable improvements is on the defensive side. Over the past three games, Duke’s opponent was held to five or fewer goals twice, and Penn State’s 11 goals were more of a byproduct of the fast pace. This defensive success was not always the case, despite the fact that the unit contains several talented individuals, including All-American Parker McKee. “Defensively, we were disappointed that the sum wasn’t greater than the parts early on,” Danowski said. “We have some great parts, and they’ve been coming together as of late.” But, if the Blue Devils can have any success in limiting the explosive Hoyas and continue their fast play on the offensive end, they have the chance to build on their recent momentum with a signature win. “Being Duke, we have that target on our back,” Crotty said. “If we can get this one, it would prove to us that we really have made a big step in our season.”