Duke men's lacrosse marches into April against North Carolina Friday

Do not let the date deceive you—the Blue Devils are no fools when it comes to the month of April.

Since 2007, Duke has lost just three regular season games in the fourth month of the year, and when the first draw is taken at the faceoff X on April Fool’s Day Friday, the squad will be poised to continue that string of success in 2016.

With their Tobacco Road rivals making the short trek down highway 15-501, the No. 11 Blue Devils will attempt to head into the final month of the regular season with a victory against No. 17 North Carolina at Koskinen Stadium at 6 p.m. After a resume-building 16-15 win Saturday against then-No. 5 Syracuse, Duke will search for its first 2-0 conference start since 2011.

“Every game has its own story, and it’s one at a time. I think we’re just trying to improve on our weaknesses and trying to recognize strengths,” Duke head coach John Danowski said. “I don’t think anyone talks about being 2-0 [in conference] as much as we just talk about the next game. I think we’ve learned that this is all so fragile…. For us, we look at this game as, ‘Can we be better than we were last week [and] can we improve upon what we did offensively?’”

Although they are averaging 14.4 goals per game this season, the Blue Devils (7-4, 1-0 in the ACC) struggled to find the back of the net in a gut-wrenching loss against Air Force at home last week, netting just nine goals in the overtime defeat. But as conference play ramps up in the coming weeks, Duke needs to build on its offensive eruption against the Orange moving forward.

And led by senior midfielder Deemer Class, the Blue Devils will look to do just that Friday.

Against Syracuse, Class—who boasts a team-high 33 goals this season—recorded seven tallies and two helpers to propel his team to a come-from-behind win. In the fourth quarter, the senior scored three of his team’s five goals during a 5-0 run that set up Duke for the overtime winner and garnered the Baltimore native ACC Offensive Player of the Week and USILA Offensive Player of the Week honors.

Aside from Class, who scored five goals last season against the Tar Heels (5-4), sophomore attackman Justin Guterding will look to repeat his six-point performance from last year’s 15-14 loss in Chapel Hill in his second matchup with the lighter shade of blue. Guterding leads the Blue Devils with 45 points this season, well on his way to matching his 70-point total from his rookie campaign.

If ACC Defensive Player of the Week and faceoff specialist Kyle Rowe can continue winning 67 percent of his faceoffs and add to his 90 ground balls from the midfield, the Duke offense will be able to dodge down the alley and feed Guterding around the crease for another offensive outburst.

“We’ve been watching film on Carolina. We know what they’re going to do. We know what we’re going to do to keep that momentum going and hopefully we just keep shooting and shoot like we have been,” Guterding said. “All ACC teams defensively are really athletic, so we’ve got to move the ball quickly and put it on each other’s sticks and have good shots.”

North Carolina will turn to new weapons for offensive production after losing a trio of its most productive seniors from last year’s squad. Jimmy Bitter, Joey Sankey and Chad Tutton combined for 10 goals and four assists in last March’s win against Duke, but this season, the Tar Heels have relied on senior attackman Steve Pontrello and sophomore attackman Chris Cloutier to carry the load. Pontrello paces North Carolina with a team-high 24 goals, and Cloutier trails just behind with 22 tallies of his own.

“Every team in college obviously is different from year-to-year because of your losses. It’s hard to replace guys that scored [191 points] for them last year. That’s not easy, but as you get into April and these games, teams get better,” Danowski said. “Certainly, we hope it’s not this week where Carolina gets a lot better and a lot more poised, but they’re very dangerous. They’ve got terrific players.”

With the loss of their high-scoring senior trio in the offseason, the Tar Heels have experienced lapses on the offensive end that have cost them down the stretch. With fewer than 10 goals in three of its losses this season, North Carolina will look to maintain a more consistent offensive assault against the Blue Devil defense on the road. The Tar Heels went scoreless for 16 minutes in the second half in Saturday’s loss at Maryland but average 12.9 goals per game, posing a serious threat to snag a win in their first conference game of the season if they can avoid another drought.

“It’s Duke-Carolina,” Guterding said. “It doesn’t matter who they have, who they don’t have. It’s going to be a great game no matter what.”