It was closer than they expected, but the Blue Devils started the road back to their third-straight NCAA title the way they needed—with a win.
Playing in its first game of the season on the road, No. 3 Duke took down High Point 16-13 behind the play of freshman attackman Justin Guterding and junior Myles Jones. Guterding opened his Blue Devil career with a six-goal performance and Jones put in five points as Duke used a late push and key performances from new players to pick of its first win of the year.
“What we did see was guys in brand new roles all over the place,” head coach John Danowsk told GoDuke.com following the game. “You saw guys playing new roles and there were a lot of different, from our perspective, a lot of great plays in the game that were significant if we’re to grow and move forward.”
As the score would suggest, the Panthers (1-1) did not make things easy on the Blue Devils (1-0) in their season-opener. Coming up on the 10-minute mark in the fourth quarter, the score was knotted at 13-13 and seemed like the contest could fall either way. But Duke locked down on defense, not allowing a goal in the final 10 minutes and adding three of its own in the final six minutes to secure the win.
Jones, Guterding and junior Deemer Class—who finished with two goals and an assist—all found the back of the net in that final stretch.
“Watching High Point on tape, we just think they are so well coached and they have some great talent,” Danowski said. “At Duke you always get everyone’s best shot. We knew this was going to be a 60-minute battle.”
The first 30 minutes of that battle, however, had many Blue Devil fans sweating. After jumping out to a 5-2 in the first quarter, High Point fired right back in the second, reeling off a 5-2 run of its own to tie the score up at 7-7 heading in the halftime.
And in the first 12 minutes of the third quarter, it seemed like Duke had made the necessary halftime adjustments and was ready to blow the doors off the game. The Blue Devils came out of the break and reeled off five-straight goals to give themselves a 12-7 advantage and, seemingly, all the momentum.
But the Panthers would not go quietly.
Starting at the 3:22-mark in the third quarter, High Point answered Duke's run yet again, tallying six of the next seven goals to tie the game at 13-all. The Panthers were led by Cole Carns, who scored three of his team-high four goals in that stretch.
From that point on, as Class, Jones and Guterding pushed forward on offense, it was the Blue Devil defense that paved the way for Duke.
Junior goalkeeper Luke Aaron tallied seven saves on the day in his 40 minutes of play, including two in the final five minutes to help ice the game for Duke.
“I was impressed with our ability to play the game for 60 minutes,” Danowski said. “[At the end] we had possession of the ball. Defensively, I thought we played well in the box the whole game. Luke Aaron made two big saves in that last five-minute sequence.”
Another Blue Devil to take note of is senior Jack Rowe. The Vienna, Va., native is faced with the task of replacing faceoff specialist and two-time All-AmericanBrendan Fowler—who is a current wrestler for Duke after using his four years of eligibility in men's lacrosse. Rowe did a solid job as the Blue Devils' top faceoff man, winning 20-of-33 restarts for Duke and snagging 10 ground balls in Saturday's contest.
Duke will not have long to reflect on its season-opening win, as the Blue Devils will head back to Durham Sunday for their 2015 home opener against Air Force at noon.
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