No. 3 Duke Falls to No. 5 Syracuse, 10-4

Wednesday, March 20

Syracuse, N.Y.

7 p.m.

Duke University

8-2, 0-1

Syracuse

8-2, 1-0

Duke University

Syracuse

Photo by: Duke Athletics

No. 3 Duke Falls to No. 5 Syracuse, 10-4

3/20/2024 10:07:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score Box Score

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Fifth-ranked Syracuse outscored No.3 Duke, 5-1, in the third quarter to hand the Blue Devils a 10-4 setback in the 2024 ACC men's lacrosse opener Wednesday night at the JMA Wireless Dome.

Patrick Jameison shined for Duke (8-2, 0-1) in goal with a career-high matching 14 saves. The Blue Devil defense held Syracuse to its fewest goals of the season and the fewest since scoring nine against Johns Hopkins in 2023.

How it Happened

Duke freshman Benn Johnston opened the scoring for the Blue Devils at the 10:52 mark, rifling a shot inside the right post for the 1-0 lead. Patrick Jameison was excellent in goal for the first eight minutes, making three saves.
Syracuse evened the score midway just under the midway point of the quarter on an extra-man score from Finn Thomson. The Orange, capitalizing on superb goaltending of their own, scored a pair just over a minute apart to take a 3-1 lead after the opening 15 minutes.
Junior Andrew McAdorey ended Duke's scoring drought at 14:20 with his 16th goal of the season. Brennan O'Neill was credited with the assist.
The Blue Devils continued to play lockdown defense, holding Syracuse without a goal for over 12 minutes. The Orange ended their scoreless stretch at 12:18 with a Luke Rhoa goal and 4-2 lead at the 5:36 minute mark. Syracuse goalie Will Mark continued to stifle the Blue Devils, making five saves in the half as the Orange went into the break with the 4-2 edge.
Jameison was equally impressive in goal for the Blue Devils with nine saves, including a massive one with just over a minute left in the half.
Syracuse outscored Duke 5-1 in the third quarter to take a 9-3 lead into the final 15 minutes. The six-goal deficit was the largest Duke faced all season. Josh Zawada had the goal for the Blue Devils, ending Duke's scoreless stretch at 24:25.
Trailing 10-3, O'Neill got on the scoreboard five minutes into the fourth quarter to bring Duke back within six.
Duke's defense continued to battle, holding the Orange to one goal on seven shots, but the Blue Devil offense couldn't find its rhythm as Mark and the Syracuse defense suffocated the Blue Devils throughout the 60 minutes.
Mark had 14 stops for the Orange.

Notes

Jake Naso won 11 faceoffs to move to seventh in NCAA history with 924.
Brennan O'Neill scored a goal and an assist to push his goal streak to 38 games. He has 120 goals in that stretch.
The four goals scored by Duke are the fewest by the Blue Devils since they had three against Notre Dame in 2012.
Tyler Carpenter had his second consecutive game with five ground balls and the 25th of his career. He also had two caused turnovers to give him 78 for his career and two shy of becoming the third Blue Devil to reach 80. He is 12 away from breaking the Duke record.

Quotes
John Danowski on the loss
"You look at the statistics and you say, 'Wow that was a really even game.' But it really wasn't. You have to tip your cap to your opponent. They were terrific. Until you see the film, you're not quite sure exactly what you think you saw. I think offensively we certainly struggled, but defensively that was a terrific effort for us. If you hold a very talented team like Syracuse to 10 goals, you would think that it would be competitive into the fourth quarter, but clearly tonight it was not."

Danowski on whether the turnovers were a reflection of Syracuse's defense or not
"I hope it's on Syracuse's part because it was very disappointing. We haven't looked like that all year and sometimes it is your opponent and it is what they're doing to you. But our exchange passes, our decision making – even in the huddles we just looked like the old deer in the headlights. We're a mixture of old and young on offense and I'm just very disappointed with the way we responded. It just didn't look like guys were playing with – I don't want to call it swagger – but you need a bravado to play at this level and we just didn't seem to play with that, and we didn't seem to have any leadership on the offensive end tonight."

Message at halftime
"Well, it was 4-2 last week against Richmond so it was only two goals different. I said, 'Hey listen, last week we were in a very similar situation against a very talented defensive team in Richmond.' We ended up scoring eight goals in the second half and playing really well. I said defensively if we continue to play at this pace, we can get back in it. Nobody was freaking out at that point, but offensively – we had won every faceoff in the first half. We actually had 10 possessions in the box in the first quarter, which is a lot, and only scored once. Usually, we're operating around 35 to 40 percent in the box and today it was obviously much much less."

Is this one of the losses you ignore and move on or not
"Oooh boy. We're going to have a meeting tomorrow for sure. But two things – we play Denver on Sunday, so we have no time, no time to hang our heads. We've got to learn, and we have to get better fast. And whether that's execution or Xs and Os or decision making or just a little bit of finding the fire you need to be competitive at this level, which I didn't know that we had offensively tonight. But the other piece is you're never as bad as you think you are when you lose. You over analyze everything. And when you win, you're never as good as you think you are and there's a tendency to kind of neglect things you need to work on and get better at. So, the truth is always somewhere in the middle. We've got to find that middle in a hurry."

On Brennan O'Neill's performance
"He had 11 shots, he was 1-for-11 shooting, which is not a banner day. He got his hands free different times. I thought one time he could have taken another step and got underneath right in front of our bench when he dodged. I thought he was trying to cut it too fine. Whether that was a result of good goalie play or as a result of not scoring or the team not scoring. Brennan has a unique skillset, but he's not a carrier at X. He's an off-ball [guy], but somebody else has to create some offense in order for him to dodge rotation and we never got to that tonight."

Up Next

Duke heads to Baltimore for another top-five matchup against No. 5 Denver. Faceoff is set for March 24 at 2 p.m., at Archbishop Spalding High School. The game will be streamed live by FloSports ($).

To stay up to date with Blue Devils men's lacrosse, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by searching "DukeMLAX".

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