With the hosting team decked out in visiting jerseys and holding one last chance to punch its ticket to the NCAA tournament, Friday’s game was a classic underdog tale. But not for Duke, which had its conference tournament run cut short due to a locked-in Notre Dame squad.
The frontier of sports analytics only became widely available recently through hobbyist and crowdsourced data. Using the website Lacrosse Reference, which analyzes college teams using metrics beyond the stat sheet, let’s dive into how we can use these numbers by looking at the Duke women’s lacrosse team.
While the Blue Devils are not yet a postseason lock, their early-season struggles feel further in the rearview than they have at any other point this season.
In the final game of the regular season, No. 1 North Carolina showed that it still has Duke’s number, handling the fifth-ranked Blue Devils 18-4, securing the ACC regular-season title and the top seed in the upcoming conference tournament in the process.
The seventh-ranked Blue Devils hosted No. 2 Boston College Saturday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium, where the crew delivered a 16-15 upset against the defending national champions.
Continuing a streak that began in 2005, No. 14 Duke once again defeated No. 6 Virginia in the teams’ regular-season meeting.
Sometimes your best isn’t quite enough, and that was the case against the Fighting Irish as the Blue Devils fell 16-15 at home in Koskinen Stadium.
Nothing in the ACC comes easy. Road games are even harder. And Thursday night in Blacksburg, the Blue Devils came face-to-face with seeing their seven-game winning streak snapped.
Saturday night, with Duke and North Carolina’s prestigious men’s basketball programs facing off in the Final Four, all eyes were fixed on New Orleans. Just a few hours earlier, though, that same rivalry raged on back in Chapel Hill.
With just under seven minutes left in the second period, No. 7 Duke trailed No. 16 Virginia 6-4. It seemed that every Blue Devil offensive possession was stunted with a foul or a turnover, and that they wouldn’t be able to compete with the Cavaliers. Until Katie DeSimone decided otherwise.
For a team criticized for lacking cohesion, locking down its pre-existing players and supplementing them with experience and freshman seemed a sensible strategy.
Brennan O'Neill dragged a Blue Devil team that has underperformed in recent weeks to a commanding 14-7 win against Towson Saturday in the Capitol Classic Tournament at Audi Field.
History. The undisputed draw control queen. Maddie Jenner, take a bow. To start the third quarter, Jenner broke a record. With the 513th draw control of her career and her 142nd of the season, Maddie moved into sole possession of the Duke program record.
DeSimone led Duke in the contest with four goals and one assist. Barry and senior Maddie Jenner followed in suit, with Barry scoring two goals and three assists and Jenner tallying three goals and 13 draw controls.
In a rematch of last season’s dramatic Elite Eight matchup, then-No. 8 Duke fell 12-10 on the road to Loyola as the clock ran out on a furious Blue Devil comeback bid in the latter half of the fourth quarter.
Heading back to Durham on the back of two consecutive road games, then-No. 10 Duke came out firing against Richmond at Koskinen Stadium, strolling to a 14-8 victory.
“Every year I'm like, ‘Oh it's not a big deal,’ and it is actually kind of hard because you want her to do well and I want her team to do really well but obviously this is a day where we want to make sure Duke prevails,” Kimel said after the game.
While the Blue Devils’ modus operandi Saturday was unleashing as many shots as possible on as many possessions as possible, the Quakers had a different, sneakier approach.
“We came out strong. We pushed the fast break, pushed the secondary break, and we're getting a lot of looks,“ Catriona Barry said.
Headlining this talent and pulling the strings of their team’s win were two names you’ll hear a whole lot this season: Brennan O’Neill and Dyson Williams.
