Duke men's lacrosse hosts No. 3 Notre Dame and Mercer

Duke faces two faces two foes this weekend—one with which it shares an extensive history and another it knows virtually nothing about.

After splitting its first two contests of the season last weekend, the No. 4 Blue Devils have another full slate of lacrosse this weekend, playing host to No. 3 Notre Dame Saturday at 1 p.m. and Mercer Sunday at noon at Koskinen Stadium. Duke has squared off with the Fighting Irish five times in the last three seasons, but has faced the Bears just once in program history.

“You’re evolving as a team, and you need to play games to figure out who you are going to become. I think we learned a lot about ourselves. I think we were better Sunday as a result of Saturday and I thought we were better this week as a result of our practice,” Duke head coach John Danowski said. “We know this is a different type of game against Notre Dame because they play such good defense, have terrific goalie play and on offense they know who they are. They don’t try to do things that they’re not capable of. They are very well-coached.”

The Blue Devils (1-1) are first on the schedule this season for Notre Dame, which fell to eventual-champion Loyola in the NCAA tournament semifinal last May. Duke is winless against the Fighting Irish in its last three regular season tilts, but has triumphed in both of the teams’ postseason matchups, including a 6-5 overtime victory in the 2010 National Championship game.

But without any game film to watch of Notre Dame this season, the Blue Devils have been forced to focus on their own gameplan this week in practice.

“We don’t know too much about their new people or how they are playing. We can only go off of last year’s films, but we’re doing what we can,” Danowski said. “Matt Kavanagh—their left-handed freshman attackman—seems like he’s ready to play some primetime lacrosse. Otherwise we have just been focusing on what we as a team can do.”

One of the key matchups in this weekend’s contest between Duke and the Fighting Irish will take place at the faceoff X. Blue Devil junior midfielder Brendan Fowler earned ACC Defensive Player of the Week honors last week after winning 58.8 percent of his faceoffs against No. 8 Denver and Jacksonville last weekend. Notre Dame will counter with junior midfielder Liam O’Connor, who won 49.7 percent of his draws on the 2012 season.

Duke will lean heavily on junior attackman Jordan Wolf, who currently leads the nation in scoring with eight goals and four assists on the season. The Fighting Irish return its four leading scorers from last year in fifth-year senior Sean Rogers, juniors Jim Marlatt and Westy Hopkins and sophomore Conor Doyle.

“We have seen nothing from Mercer. Nothing at all,” Danowski said. “We have spent no time right now, and we’ll spend some time Saturday night looking at them. And our hope is that whatever we learn Saturday against Notre Dame we will carry forward into Sunday for our second game.”

Although two games played in such a short time leaves little time for preparation and even less time for rest, Danowski said that experiencing multiple games back-to-back early in the season can only better prepare his team for lacrosse’s biggest stages.

“Kids want to play games, and because the first game on Saturday takes a tremendous effort, the guys will be pretty sore come Sunday,” Danowski said. “But if you have any dreams or aspirations of playing in an ACC final or an NCAA final one day, you need to learn how to play when you’re tired and play when you’re sore.”