All Case Matheis needed was a couple of steps.
After 65 minutes of play and 60 shot attempts as a team, it took the freshman only a handful of strides to create the space and angle he needed to convert Duke’s 12th goal and extend his team’s season for at least one more week.
The seventh-seeded Blue Devils (13-5) survived a double overtime battle with Loyola (11-5) Sunday to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. Duke needed eight second-half goals, a game-tying score at the end of regulation and Matheis’ game-winner in the second overtime period to come away with a 12-11 victory. The freshman scored three goals on the evening, including Duke’s final two goals.
“It was all pretty fast—it’s a blur,” Matheis said. “It was overtime, so you hold nothing back, and you see what you can make happen. I was fortunate enough to score.”
After junior Jordan Wolf scored the opening goal on a diving attempt less than a minute into the game, Duke gave up three consecutive goals to the Greyhounds to finish out the opening period.
Slow shifts on defense and turnovers in the box put Duke in an early hole, and the deficit could have been bigger if not for some early saves from sophomore goaltender Kyle Turri.
“[Loyola] gave me a lot of low-angle shots at the beginning and it was easy to see the ball,” Turri said. “Once I started making saves, the defense relaxed and the offense relaxed ahead of them.”
The sophomore finished the game with 13 saves and benefitted from a couple more Greyhound shots that missed after finding the crossbar rather than the back of the net. Junior Justin Ward led Loyola with five assists, including one to freshman Zach Herreweyers, who paced his team with three goals.
In the opposing goal, junior Jack Runkel played his own superb game, racking up a career-high 22 saves.
“The defense really gave me a lot of shots from players’ weak hands,” he said. “That was something that I think we worked on a lot in practice—funneling guys away from their strengths. Seeing guys’ weak hands is a lot easier than seeing their strong hands.”
Loyola had stretched its lead to 7-2, but two late goals by Duke to close the first half cut the deficit to 7-4 heading into the locker room.
After allowing long stick midfielder Scott Ratliff to put Loyola ahead by four at the beginning of the third period, four different Blue Devils scored—including two goals in a span of 11 seconds—to tie the game at 8-8 heading into the fourth quarter.
Duke then traded three Loyola goals—two from junior Mike Sawyer, Loyola’s leading goal-scorer on the season—for only two of its own in the first ten minutes of the final quarter, putting it Duke down one heading into the final minutes of regulation.
The Blue Devils gained possession after a Greyhound turnover with just two minutes left and capitalized on the opportunity when Matheis found himself in the right place at the right time. David Lawson’s shot deflected off the post, but the rebound bounced right to Matheis, who put home the goal while falling to his knees to tie the contest with 1:05 to play.
Loyola responded with one of its few faceoff victories of the day. Blake Burkhart, who finished the day at 6-of-17 at the X, won the final faceoff of regulation against Duke’s Brendan Fowler, the nation’s third best faceoff man. Burkhart drove down the middle of the field with possession and ripped a shot past Turri. But what could have been the game-winning goal never counted, as Toomey called timeout just a moment before Brukhart let the shot fly.
“We said in the huddle that if we get in the box we are going to call an immediate timeout,” Toomey said. “I apologized to [my players] at the end. It felt like maybe I had taken the game away from them. But we had made that decision to call the timeout and we’ll live with that. It’s something that I have to live with.”
After the timeout, Loyola had two more chances to put itself ahead, but the Greyhounds could not connect on either attempt, sending the game to overtime.
“Before we go into overtime, we just talk about play to win,” Danowski said. Don’t worry about the consequences of screwing up or not making a play… the attitude was just play to win. Don’t think about anything else other than that.”
A fast-paced first overtime period yielded a combined six shots and three saves from both teams, but no goals.
In the second overtime, Runkel made his 22nd save with two minutes to go, but a Loyola turnover quickly gave possession back to Duke.
Matheis emerged from the scrum with the ball, beat his defender and slung a low shot past Runkel’s stick. He was promptly tackled in a swarm of teammates in the southwest corner of the field.
The Blue Devils advance to face second-seeded Notre Dame next week in Indianapolis, with a chance to advance to Duke’s seventh consecutive national semifinal. The Greyhounds will not repeat as national champions, but Toomey lauded his team’s effort after the contest.
“When I’ve got a guy with five assists on my right and a guy that makes 22 saves in a game, it’s a bitter pill to swallow to know that you’re not moving forward,” Toomey said. “That was a great lacrosse game today, two teams that deserve to move on in the tournament. It’s a shame that that had to be played in the first round.”
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