O’Neill Gets Goal 100; Duke Races Past Bellarmine, 19-7

Saturday, February 4

Durham, N.C.

12 p.m.

Duke University

1-0

Bellarmine

0-1

BELLARMINE

Duke University

Photo by: Duke Athletics

O’Neill Gets Goal 100; Duke Races Past Bellarmine, 19-7

2/4/2023 4:21:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

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DURHAM – Duke junior attackman Brennan O'Neill registered his 100th career goal and finished with a game-high seven points to lead the seventh-ranked Blue Devils to a 19-7 victory over Bellarmine in the men's lacrosse season opener at Koskinen Stadium.

The Blue Devils led 8-0 at the half and held the Knights without a goal for 32:52. Sophomore Andrew McAdorey, playing his first game at attack for the Blue Devils, had three goals and two assists, while Dyson Williams notched four goals. The starting attack unit accounted for 17 of the team's 30 points and nine different Blue Devils scored goals.

How it Happened

Graduate student Garrett Leadmon opened the scoring for Duke 1:40 into the game with an unassisted score. He finished with two on the afternoon. The Blue Devils tacked on three more goals in the opening quarter from three different players for a 4-0 advantage at the first break.
Duke continued to dominate in the second quarter with McAdorey scoring twice and Owen Caputo notching his first of the season to send the Blue Devils into the locker room with a comfortable 8-0 lead.
Defensively, Duke held Bellarmine to just 15 shots in the first half and forced 12 turnovers. The Knights did not take a shot until 3:26 left in the first quarter. Graduate student William Helm earned his first career start at Duke and had five saves in the opening 30 minutes and finished with eight. The Blue Devils' man-down unit was solid, holding the Knights scoreless on three extra-man chances, including a two-minute penalty.
Duke wore down a solid defense from Bellarmine in the third quarter, tallying five goals. The Knights broke through for their first score 2:52 into the stanza and added three more to head into the final period trailing 13-4. Tayo Oladunmoye led all Bellarmine players with two goals and two assists.
It was the O'Neill and Williams show to start the final frame as the pair combined in near identical fashion 50 seconds apart to make it 15-4.
The final 90 seconds however, belonged to graduate student Tommy Schelling and sophomore Liam McLane. Schelling's forced turnovers on the Duke ride and McLane scooped up the ground ball for two goals in a span of 16 seconds and a 19-7 Duke victory.
Jake Naso once again was strong at the faceoff dot, winning 16-of-22 and picking up seven ground balls. Freshman Luke Engelke and graduate student transfer Jamie Zusi also both earned their first faceoff wins as Blue Devils. Duke won the ground ball battle 38-27 and fired an incredible 57 shots to Bellarmine's 29.
Duke's ride was excellent with O'Neill and Schelling registering two caused turnovers and Williams one more. In all, Duke finished with 10 caused turnovers.

Notes

O'Neill becomes the 22nd Blue Devil to score 100 career goals. He is the fastest in program history to reach the benchmark, doing it in 35 career games. He edges Zack Greer who achieved the feat in 38 games. Justin Guterding scored 100 in 39 games. O'Neill's five assists were a career high as his seven points push his career total to 136.
Williams registered his eighth career hat trick and pushed his career goals total to 95, leaving him five shy of joining the century club.
Naso pushed his faceoff wins total to 484 with 16 victories this afternoon. He needs 16 more to reach 500 for his career and remains on pace to climb into the top 30 in NCAA history as just a junior.
In goal, Helm made his Division I debut. A USILA All-American from Division III St. Lawrence, Helm made eight saves and allowed four goals in 47 minutes of action.
Rookie Charles Balsamo registered his first collegiate point with a pair of goals.

Quotes
John Danowski on Brennan O'Neill
"Brennan's skillset is incredibly unique to our sport. Not only is he big and strong and fast, his lacrosse skills are just unique. He's grown every year and you can see it. Today, he had five assists. I don't know that he would have gotten five assists as a freshman, but you can just see him developing his game and his ability to finish the ball and create shots. He didn't shoot particularly great today, but it is Feb. 4."

John Danowski on Bellarmine's defense
"I really like the way Bellarmine plays defensively. They slide really quickly. They rotate hard to the ball. They recover well. It's not an easy game to prepare for so your offensive players really need to play with a high IQ. I thought assistant coach Matt Danowski did a phenomenal job preparing the guys this week for that defense. It was fun to watch."

John Danowski on the attack unit
"This is Andrew McAdorey's first game [at Duke] as an attackman so while Brennan [O'Neill] and Dyson [Williams] play together this is the first time the three of them played together. So, it was important for them to get a feel. Andrew is not only a lacrosse player, he's a "player" in every sense of the word. He rides when our opponent has the ball. He gets ground balls. He's very unselfish and plays with a great deal of humility, but yet he has great lacrosse skills. I thought for his first game as an attackman he did well."

Up Next
Duke is back in action Tuesday, Feb. 7 against High Point at 7 p.m. The game will be available on ACCNX.

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