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Blumenherst, Greer Chosen Blue Devils Of The Year For 2007-08
7/22/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Lacrosse, Women's Golf
DURHAM, N.C. ? Duke's best shots at national championships last year belonged to the women's golf and men's lacrosse teams. Both were ranked No. 1 in the country, enjoyed long periods of dominant play and claimed the Blue Devils' only ACC titles.
And both clubs were supremely motivated. The golfers hoped to become the first school ever to win four consecutive NCAA crowns, while the lacrosse team was hungry for its first taste of ultimate fulfillment ? after a pair of bitter one-goal defeats in the finals sandwiched around the upheaval of 2006.
Neither team was able to close the deal on its 2008 championship intentions. After a slow start at nationals, the golfers rallied on the last day but wound up third ? still respectable, of course, just not No. 1.
The day after that tourney ended in Albuquerque, the lacrosse team took the field for the NCAA semifinals in Foxborough and endured another one-goal loss to a familiar adversary, Johns Hopkins. It was only the second defeat of the Blue Devils' 20 contests.
While both teams fell just shy of historic achievements, they nonetheless led the way as Duke's most successful squads for 2007-08. Several individuals on each club enjoyed notoriety and acclaim, including two who have been selected as Blue Devil Weekly's Blue Devils of the Year ? golfer Amanda Blumenherst and lacrosse attackman Zack Greer.
Blumenherst and Greer earlier were named Duke's Carlyle Cup MVPs for 2007-08 as well as the school's nominees for ACC Athlete of the Year voting, which concludes this week. Greer additionally was named the Duke athletics department's senior male athlete of the year.
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“The first thing that comes to mind about Zack is who he is as a person,” lacrosse coach John Danowski says. “He's extremely humble, down to earth, loyal, just wonderful to be around. Besides the lacrosse part and all those accolades, the first thing for me is that he's a wonderful person. He never missed a practice, always practiced hard and was just a pleasure to be around on a daily basis.”
As for the lacrosse part, the senior from Whitby, Ontario, was one of the best ever to suit up in Division I. Greer led the nation in goals scored in three of the past four years and totaled 206 goals in his 67 career starts, the all-time best total in NCAA history.
He scored at least one goal in all but five games he played in over the four years, while helping Duke to an overall record of 58-10, an ACC mark of 17-2, two ACC titles and three trips to the final four. Two of the teams he played on set NCAA records for most victories in a single season (17 in 2005, 18 in 2008).
“Obviously we were disappointed with the way the season finished,” Greer says. “It was our goal from the beginning of the year to win a national championship and we knew we had the team and the motivation and the guys who were going to work hard enough to get to that point, so it was disappointing not to be able to reach that.
“But as a team we did so many things. We won the ACC Tournament, which a lot of people never get to do in their life and that made it two in a row for us. We set the wins record and we had a great season. But again, it was bittersweet. We played really well but didn't finish the way we would have liked.”
Greer, who learned the sport by playing the indoor version on Canadian hockey rinks as a kid, earned All-America honors three times, including two berths on the first team. He ranks as the only ACC player to post three seasons with at least 50 goals and just the second NCAA player ever to enjoy three seasons of 55 or more goals. His top honor for 2008 was the Lt. Col. Jack Turnbull Award, which goes to the best attackman in the country.
Greer flourished in a Duke attack that was the most prolific in the country the past two years. He joined forces with fifth-year star Matt Danowski and sophomore Max Quinzani to help Duke lead the country in scoring last spring. In fact, the Blue Devils scored so much ? 15.2 goals per game ? that most of their contests were blowouts.
“The guys that we were playing with offensively were so creative and so skilled that you never really knew what was going to happen,” Greer says. “Sometimes you're standing there watching the play and your jaw would drop and you'd say, ?Did we just do that?' We had so many great players that it made it a lot of fun every time we went out on the field.”
“Zack played during a time at Duke when he was surrounded by other people who allowed him to be at his best,” John Danowski says. “Matt complemented Zack and Zack complemented Matt. Max Quinzani, Ned Crotty, they all worked well together. Our defensive style enabled us to run and allowed him some freedom, and with the groundball game we put in...we found that Zack was great off the ground and that brought it to another level.
“There's nothing he can't do with a ball and stick when he's around the cage. He's a great finisher.”
The one lingering question about Greer is if he is indeed finished at Duke. He is the only fourth-year player from the 2008 squad who has yet to inform Danowski if he will take advantage of a fifth year of eligibility granted to members of the 2006 team by the NCAA.
Six other seniors have opted to return, including starters Ryan McFadyen (D) and Brad Ross (M), backup goalie Rob Schroeder, attackman Chris Loftus and reserves Kevin Mayer (D) and Jay Jennison (D). Mayer is adding a second major and will remain an undergraduate, while the other five will be in graduate school.
Danowski says he has not given Greer a timetable to make a decision. He describes it as a personal and emotional situation and has left it open-ended for Greer to decide on his own time.
Greer told BDW he'd like to make up his mind by August 1 and says that playing a fifth year of college lacrosse is one of a few options on his plate. “I'm still up in the air. I think I would like to but I haven't decided what I'm going to do,” he said.
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Early in her Duke career, there was speculation that Amanda Blumenherst would never make it to her senior year due to the lure of professional golf. She always said she intended to be a four-year student-athlete and she's being true to her word. She'll return to the Blue Devils for one last season in 2008-09 as the No. 1 college player in her sport nationwide.
A native of Scottsdale, Ariz., Blumenherst already has posted a storied career with three straight seasons as the ACC and national player of the year. This season she won the Golfstat Cup for the third time, claimed the Honda Award for the second time and also became the first repeat winner of the Nancy Lopez Award. She is also a repeat winner of BDW's Blue Devil of the Year honor.
Blumenherst won her third straight ACC individual crown in 2008 ? one of her 11 career victories, No. 2 in Duke history ? and took fifth place individually at the NCAA championship. She won four tourneys overall this year and finished in the top five in all 11 that Duke entered. Her stroke average was 71.0, tying her own school record. With a year to go she already ranks as Duke's all-time leader in rounds shot at or under par, with 64.
Blumenherst's game has not been confined to college tournaments, as she has made the cut at the last three U.S. Women's Opens, finishing once as the low amateur. Last summer she finished as runnerup at the U.S. Women's Amateur and this spring she competed in the LPGA Kraft Nabisco Championship, where she took 30th place. Following the NCAA tourney earlier this summer, she helped the United States win the Curtis Cup competition against Great Britain and Ireland.
The rest of the story on Blumenherst is that she is also an accomplished student and involved campus citizen ? in other words, the complete package. She has been recognized as the top scholar-athlete in college golf and twice has made the Academic All-America team. She posted a 3.850 grade point average in 2007-08 and now owns a cumulative mark of 3.78 while majoring in history with minors in English and theater studies. She is active in community service as well.
Blumenherst recently took a break from a grueling early-summer tournament schedule to visit family in Indiana, where she looked ahead to her senior year for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
“I'm trying not to set too many goals for myself my senior year because it is my senior year,” she noted. “I want to be able to really enjoy it and not get too stressed out or too worried about placing well in each tournament and being player of the year again,” she said.
“I just want to really have fun and let things fall into place. Overall, I'd like to get player of the year again, four years in a row, and make that record hard to beat. I want to follow the last two or three years and just have a solid senior year.”
BDW's Blue Devils of the Year
2000 Ali Curtis, soccer
2001 Shane Battier, basketball; Candy Hannemann, golf
2002 Jason Williams, basketball; Virada Nirapathpongporn, golf
2003 Michael Yani, tennis; Alana Beard, basketball
2004 Chris Duhon, basketball; Alana Beard, basketball
2005 Matt Danowski, lacrosse; Katie Chrest, lacrosse; Anna Grzebien, golf
2006 J.J. Redick, basketball; Clara Horowitz, track & cross country
2007 John Danowski, lacrosse coach; Matt Danowski, lacrosse; Amanda Blumenherst, golf
2008 Zack Greer, lacrosse; Amanda Blumenherst, golf
Players Mentioned
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/ Women's Golf
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/ Men's LacrosseA
/ Men's LacrosseM
/ Men's Lacrosse
PLAYER
/ Women's Golf
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/ Men's LacrosseA
/ Men's LacrosseD
/ Men's LacrosseD
/ Men's LacrosseA
/ Men's LacrosseG
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