On Senior Day at Koskinen, Duke welcomes the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, who are much improved over recent years, but still not very good.
Rutgers comes in at 7-6, 2-3 in the Big East. However, four of their wins are over Wagner, Manhattan, Richmond, and Monmouth. Their signature wins are over Army and St. John's. They have four common opponents with Duke this year: Denver, Virginia, Marquette, and Stony Brook. Duke is 4-0 against those teams. Rutgers is 0-4, and was thrashed by the Pios and Wahoos.
The Scarlet Knights are led on offense by senior attackman Scott Klimchak with 34 goals. Freshman attackman Christian Trasolini has chipped in 24 goals. They are OK on offense (unadjusted offensive efficiency right around 37 percent), but pretty putrid at the defensive end (unadjusted defensive efficiency of 38.9 percent). They play with a possession advantage of seven per game, thanks in large part to the efforts of junior FOGO Joseph Nardella, who is first in the country at 71 percent. Sophomore GK Kris Alleyne, who was the best freshman keeper in the country last year, is only saving 50.2 percent of the shots he faces, but that may be attributable to being hung out to dry by a bad defense.
The list of guys playing their last home game tomorrow is long and distinguished: Wolf, Dionne, Walsh, D. Cohan, Duprey (if he's recovered from the injury suffered against Virginia last week), Fowler, Payton, Hipps, Lobb, and Carroll.
Such a great group of seniors. Unfortunately the weather today is going to suck. Go Devils, kick their butts.
"This is the best of all possible worlds."
Dr. Pangloss - Candide
For the lifelong civilians out there, the 1300 in 1300 EDT means 1:00 PM.
The EDT, I'm not sure about. Maybe Estimated Destruction Time.
Go Duke!
I hope Rutgers loses by double digits and they look well on their way to letting it happen being down 10-6.
ACC Tournament Seeding is final with Maryland beating Notre Dame, 10-8.
1. Maryland (4-1) (10-2)
2. Duke (4-1) (11-2)
3. Syracuse (2-3) (8-3)
4. Notre Dame (2-3) (6-5)
5. North Carolina (2-3) (10-3)
6. Virginia (1-4) (8-5)
In the fourth quarter, Duke leads 17-7. Looks like a great Senior Day!
Sage Grouse
---------------------------------------
'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Seniors will be greatly missed. Who do we have next year?
On attack we will still have Case Matheis and Kyle Keenan, and a lot of this year's midfielders (Jones, Class, defensive middie Will Haus and LSM Brian Dailey). And both goalies--Aaron and Turri--as well as defender Jamie Ikeda, who started at the beginning of the season when someone (Hipps? Lobb?) was hurt. I may be missing some people, and no doubt there are a lot of promising players who are not getting much time this year just waiting for a shot. But the losses are significant--starting attackmen Wolf and Dionne, starting midfielder Christian Walsh, the entire starting close defense as well as LSM Luke Duprey, and Brendan Fowler--who was instrumental in last year's championship.
Inside Lacrosse has reported that Luke Duprey will miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL.
http://www.insidelacrosse.com/articl...o-injury/28213
Duprey's absence may be felt most at the X where he was a consistent performer. Probably why Charlie Payton had a pole today. But Payton is not nearly as big and strong as Duprey. Three weeks until the NCAAs to work in a suitable replacement. Really sad for Luke, who has had a great career at Duke.
We also have another strong recruiting class coming in. The biggest name is Jake Seau, a hyper-athletic midfielder from the Bishop's School in San Diego. But we also add attackman Justin Guterding, a HS A-A in 2013 who is doing a PG year, and a host of big, athletic poles led by LSM Peter Welch from the Delbarton School in New Jersey.
Sage Grouse
---------------------------------------
'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013