Past experience is always helpful to lean on when facing challenges seen in previous years.
No. 6 Duke (9-3) started off slowly last season after suffering tough losses to top opponents Harvard and Maryland early on in its regular season slate. This year proved no different for the Blue Devils.
After dropping early matches against the likes of Notre Dame, Maryland and North Carolina–all top 20 teams in the country–Duke faced the familiar challenge of having to turn its season around after experiencing some setbacks.
“I think that coming in we had a lot of high expectations for ourselves and we didn’t handle the pressure very well,” senior captain Parker McKee said. “In losing, it allowed us to relax more and from those games we started doing things a lot better as a team and individually, and that has given us a lot of confidence.”
The Blue Devils bounced back after their middling start last season and went on to win nine out of their last 10 contests. With many of the same players back in a similar situation, including McKee and fellow captains Max Quinzani and Ned Crotty, Duke has managed to turn its season around.
Since this year’s mediocre 2-3 start, Duke has responded ferociously and managed to put together a seven-game winning streak, which it will look to extend tomorrow at 7 p.m. when it hosts Presbyterian (1-6) at Koskinen Stadium.
And once again, the Blue Devils will enter familiar territory.
“We are at the exact same spot that we were at one year ago,” head coach John Danowski said. “One year ago we had lost to Harvard and Maryland and we were 9-3 at this time of the year. We are now 9-3 one year later. We worked hard and kept our poise… and everyone has stayed on task.”
Duke is playing its best lacrosse of the year and seems to have peaked at the perfect time with just two games left on its regular season schedule. During their winning steak, the Blue Devils have scored over 14 goals per contest. Quinzani and Crotty have fueled the spark in offensive production with each netting a hat trick in their team’s most recent victory, a 16-7 win over Jacksonville.
The defensive side of the field, however, is where Duke has seen its most rapid improvements. Over the same streak, the Blue Devils have allowed just 7.2 goals per game, developing a sense of consistency not present in their early season struggles. And while the team is not immune to giving up a high goal total, it has challenged its opponents to earn every goal they score.
“The goals we’ve given up now versus before are a lot better [than before],” McKee said. “It sounds weird, you never want to think of giving up goals as a good thing, but we are giving them up in the right situations. We are sliding to the ball and we are creating hard shots for them to make…. We have excelled at making it harder for teams to score and push their skill limits to the max.”
Despite Presbyterian not possessing the same skill level as most of the teams Duke has faced this season, the match still provides an opportunity for the Blue Devils to focus on what they need to do to finish out the season strong.
“Being healthy is always number one at this time of year,” Danowski said. “And learning from all of the experiences we have had so far, we need to be confident and have fun… just go out there and be poised and determined. That’s going to be the goal at the end of the year.”
At this point last year, Duke went on to win its final two games and the ACC Tournament. This year’s squad hopes to reach similar success.
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