Class sets single-season record as Duke men's lacrosse beats Virginia to punch ticket to ACC tournament

After heading into the locker room knotted at five goals apiece, the Blue Devils put the pedal down in the second half and did not look back en route to clinching a spot in the ACC tournament.

Despite a slow start, No. 16 Duke used a nine-goal outburst in the second half to down Virginia 14-8 at Klöckner Stadium in Charlottesville, Va., in both teams’ final shot at an ACC tournament bid. Senior midfielder Deemer Class led the way, scoring three of his five goals in the fourth quarter to set a new single-season record for goals by a Blue Devil midfielder.

With the win Sunday, Duke has not lost to the Cavaliers in the regular season since 2004, and Virginia falls to 3-16 in conference play since winning its most recent national championship in 2011.

“When you win, you don’t think about the little things that didn’t go your way, but when you lose, you’re overanalyzing every single play,” Class told GoDuke.com. “We know that we’re right there, so we’ve just tried to learn from every game—win or loss—and then keep moving forward and luckily we got this one here so that we can extend our play into the conference tournament and try and get those losses back.”

In the closing moments of the third quarter, Duke (8-6, 2-2 in the ACC) looked like a team scrambling, set up on the brink of losing its third straight conference game. A turnover due to a shot clock violation in the final two minutes and sloppy offensive rotation on the final possession left the Blue Devils searching for answers. Duke blanked the Cavaliers (6-7, 0-4) for 16:13 spanning the second and third quarters but held just a slim 9-7 lead as the game came down to the final 15 minutes.

Those 15 minutes turned into one of the Blue Devils’ best all-around quarters of the season.

The offense came to life less than two minutes into the frame when sophomore attackman Justin Guterding snagged a pass from senior midfielder Chad Cohan and connected on a jump shot to give Duke its biggest lead of the game. Less than three minutes later, the senior midfield duo of Class and Myles Jones kept the run going when Jones found Class on a backdoor pass along the crease for a dunk into the net, putting the Blue Devils up 11-7.

Virginia scored with nine minutes remaining to close the lead to just three goals, but never found the back of the net again. On the other end, Class and Jones were far from finished.

Class reached four goals on the day with a low-to-high finish for his 40th goal of the season—tying the single-season mark—before capping off the game with the record-setting tally on his fifth goal with 4:43 remaining, another unassisted laser fired from his stick after freeing his hands atop the midfield space.

Jones—who tied Robert Rotanz’s 40-goal mark a season ago—beat Cavalier goalkeeper Matt Barrett between Class’ final two tallies with a high-to-low shot into the bottom left corner of the net. By the end of the contest, the seniors had combined for seven goals and four assists.

“We knew we had to step up,” Class said. “When it’s potentially your last meaningful game, because the season is on the line, you don’t want to have any regrets, so you go out there and you just play hard.”

But a strong finish on offense is nothing if the defense is not on the other end of the field putting in the same effort. Following a strong stand against top-ranked Notre Dame last weekend, allowing just eight goals in a loss, Duke’s defense stepped up again to finish the game.

Junior goalkeeper Danny Fowler held fast in the cage, registering six of his 13 saves in the fourth period despite 13 shots peppering the cage from the Cavalier offense. For the game, Virginia outshot the Blue Devils 47-36, but Fowler’s 61.9 save percentage kept the home squad at bay.

“I think that defensively we’re getting better. I think we found some pretty good combinations. We’re getting healthier. We’re gaining a ton of experience,” Duke head coach John Danowski told GoDuke.com. “The combination of all those things makes what we’re doing really hard to quantify.”

After downing the Cavaliers, Duke awaits the result of Saturday’s Notre Dame-North Carolina contest to determine its seed in the ACC tournament. The Blue Devils are slated as the third seed, but if the Tar Heels lose, there will be a three-way tie for the No. 2 seed with Syracuse behind the Fighting Irish. Until then, Duke will look ahead to No. 17 Marquette, which will make the trip to Durham to face off against the Blue Devils at Koskinen Stadium Friday at 7 p.m.

“I’m very proud of the group for hanging in there,” Danowski said. “They’ll write their own story here—whatever it’s going to be—here at the end. Let’s see if we can get better for Friday night when we’re playing Marquette.”