A mini collection of thoughts from the weekend.
Duke Doomsday Clock
Move it an hour back.
Duke only scored five first half goals, but their defense clamped down and allowed two goals through three quarters. A week after allowing Tucker Dordevic to shoot the ball 22 times, Chris Gray was held in check with one goal, three assists, and nine shots. Rather make Gray a feeder and dare the supporting cast to beat them again on May 1st in Durham.
More great news, Sean Lulley started and took seven shots. Lulley starting is a nonnegotiable moving forward. He registered zero points, but the Duke offense still scored 15 goals thanks to Brennan O’Neill’s seven goals on ten shots. Lulley when allowed ample playing time at attack has been Duke’s best player this spring. We still wish Dyson Williams was the third attackman instead of Joe Robertson.
Nakeie Montgomery had only scored one goal in his previous four games but bounced back with three goals on six shots and chipped in one helper. The Devils need both aggressive creating and efficient goal scoring production from Montgomery to have success these next four regular season games and beyond. Duke needs to find the balance between Montgomery being involved and not shooting from 16 yards out.
The dark news for the Durham boys is that Notre Dame humiliated Syracuse 22-6.
Duke is now 4-3 in their last seven games.
Duke losing to Syracuse remains horrific.
The Loyola loss won’t be that bad if the Hounds can win the Patriot League.
The Penn loss in overtime isn’t the worst smudge on their resume either.
However, Penn has lost two of their last three games to fall to 4-3 with Brown and Harvard still to play. The shine on Brown’s season has dulled over the last three games due to losses to Harvard, UMass, and Princeton. Duke needs Penn to right the ship without potentially taking their at large bid.
The Devils host Notre Dame on Saturday. A suddenly vulnerable looking Virginia squad comes to Koskinen the following week. Their regular season wraps up with road trip rematches to Chapel Hill and South Bend.
Even if Jacksonville wins the SoCon, a 2-2 record won’t be good enough to get into the tournament.
Just win out. Don’t give us anything to write about other than a 4-0 record.
We need to move the Doomsday Clock back another hour next week.
Nobody is Beating Maryland
All those words about Duke to say this…no one is beating Maryland this season.
They are everything we hoped Duke would be except much better.
They don’t play with their food.
They don’t lose to subpar teams. They don’t lose at all.
Did you know they’ve scored 18+ goals in their last four games while averaging 21.25 goals per game?
This is a complete team and they are hungry to avenge last year’s title game loss. They have a driving factor that no other team in the country can claim. No one is beating them this spring.
Our Best Tweet from the Weekend
Are You Listening?
We’ve now released seven episodes of our podcast, LPG Coach’s Companion.
Which one is your favorite so far?
Episode 1 – Brian Brecht (Rutgers) & Bryan Kelly (Calvert Hall)
Episode 2 – Robyn Rooney (Wantagh) & Emily Boissonneault (Pitt)
Episode 3 – Lars Tiffany (Virginia) & Casey D’Annolfo (Tufts)
Episode 4 – Jack Kensil (Byram Hills) & Kelly Gallagher (Tampa)
Episode 5 – JB Clarke (Tampa) & Tom West (Bolles)
Episode 6 – Allison Kwolek (Clemson) & Kate Livesay (Middlebury)
Episode 7 – Joe Alberici (Army) & Johnny Rodriguez (Mater Dei)
If you’re trying to be a better coach, you’re going to listen to every episodes more than once.
Two episodes drop every week.
