Duke faceoff specialist Kyle Rowe played by this mantra against Loyola Saturday March 12 at Ridley Athletic Complex. Rowe won 19 of the total 24 faceoffs to bring his team to a 15-6 victory over host Loyola. The Blue Devils dominated the Hounds throughout the entirety of the contest, leading 8-3 at the half and significantly increasing this gap in the second half.
Leading scorer Myles Jones led Duke offensively, netting five goals and three assists to tie his career highs in both goals and points.
“I think it’s one thing to see a guy like Myles Jones on film and say [what] we need [to do],” sophomore midfielder Jared Mintzlaff said. “We had a game plan for him, we knew we needed to keep him out of the middle, keep him on his left hand. When you go in the game and you go up against a guy like that, very talented, very athletic, I think it’s one thing to say and one thing to do it. When you play a guy like that, it’s like the little things, it’s discipline.”
Loyola Coach Charley Toomey echoed his player’s sentiments, stressing the amount of effort his team went into preparing for Duke and Jones, specifically.
“If you’re going to play at this level and you’re going to see teams like Duke, an opponent’s going to have a great player,” Toomey said. “You’ve got to be willing and ready to stop the knowns, you’ve got to stay disciplined to your game plan. You can’t throw the film away and say you got beat by a good player, because everybody’s got one. You’ve got to figure out how to game plan… That’s the pill we need to swallow. [He’s] a terrific player, but we need to learn from it.”
Forty seconds into the game, Justin Guterding put Duke on the board with the first of his three goals off an assist from Jack Bruckner. Loyola’s defense started off strong, with Jack Carrigan forcing two turnovers in less than two minutes.
With 5:32 left in the first quarter, Loyola freshman standout Pat Spencer rolled from behind the cage for a top right corner shot to tie it up, but Duke’s Jones and Bruckner responded with unassisted goals to close the quarter with Duke at a two-point lead.
“We’ve played that first midfield [Duke’s] for the last couple of years, so we know what they’re capable of,” Toomey said. “Deemer Class and Myles Jones, I think each had five on us last year down at Duke, so it’s a disappointing result because I think what we are going to go back and see is that we don’t feel that we executed our game plan. Really, it was about discipline. It was about making Myles Jones be a left hander, and if he rolls back, slide early, and we just allowed him to get to his right hand.”
Duke got their edge on Loyola in the second quarter. Jones began the quarter with an unassisted left-handed shot from the top. Loyola’s Romar Dennis followed by Jones’ example with his own unassisted snipe to cut Duke’s lead to two-points.
A minute later at 9:25, Guterding rolled from behind to give Case Matheis a quick feed for a shot directly in front of the net, passing by Grant Limone to bump Duke’s lead back up to three points.
With 4:12 left in the half, Jones banked a hat trick off his typical shot: an unassisted snipe from the top. Bruckner contributed his second goal off a feed from CJ Carpenter to finish the half 8-3 with Duke ahead. Guterding followed suit with his second of the game off an unassisted roll from behind
“We had to sit down at goal line and understand that 33’s [Guterding] a left hander, 9 [Case Matheis] and 8 [Jack Bruckner] are right handers, and we let them step away, we went over the head,” Toomey said. “Fundamentally, they make the plays that you can’t let Duke make. It was a tough pill to swallow, because I just don’t think we put our best foot forward today and we’re going to challenge our guys with that.”
Loyola did not win a single faceoff in the second quarter, which showed its impact on the scoreboard. The Hounds only managed to take six shots, with only two goals.
“I know our guys had their hands full,” Toomey said about the faceoffs. “I think the most disappointing thing that we’re now trying to figure out is how do you make it a 50/50 again[…].”
The Hounds only scored once in the third, ending their scoring drought with 4:48 left in the quarter when Brian Sherlock wound up from the top to score off a feed from Sirico.
Sherlock snapped Duke’s six-goal streak, but the Blue Devils responded accordingly. Jones scored from an unassisted lefty bounce-shot, followed by Guterding who completed his hat trick with a low shot into the goal, assisted by Jones. Class got his first of two goals, a snipe to the top right corner.
At 3:57, Jones tied his career high for goals, scoring his fifth goal of the game with an assist by Class.
“As much as you talk about it in the locker room, we knew we had a wounded animal coming to Ridley today,” Toomey said. “I gave Duke a lot of credit. They changed their identity as to what they were last week to what they were today. They did some good changes defensively, which gave us some trouble. They exposed a lot of our weaknesses that hopefully we’re going to learn from.
“We’re very disappointed with the outcome, and right now what we need to figure out is kind of fix a few things and where we go from here. That was really our challenge in the locker room at the end of the game. It’s what did we do well, what do we need to fix, and how do we move forward.”
Duke had a rough start to their season, most recently sacrificing losses to Harvard and Richmond before facing Loyola.
“On film, they were just a different team. Defensively, I think they had two tough losses and they probably changed a little bit of their game plan and came out and they did what they needed to do, and that’s to hold us to five goals,” Mintzlaff said. “We didn’t get too many chances, but [on] those ones that we did, they were on our hands, they were in our gloves, forcing turnovers.”
For the final 21 minutes of the game, Sam Beazell replaced Limone as the Hounds’ goalie, Beazell ending with three saves and Limone with eight.
“Sometimes you do that to put a spark out there for your defense,” Toomey said on his decision to pull Limone. “But quite honestly, I thought that there was going to be more of the same with Grant. I just wanted to get him out and let him see it from the sideline, maybe it gives us some instant energy. I thought Sam came in there and performed admirably. It’s tough when you’re giving those up and you’re not getting the ball back. When it’s make it-take it, it’s tough defensively. We’re hopefully a bend-don’t-break team, but today they just broke us.”
Pat Spencer led the Hounds with two goals, with one-goal contributions by Zack Sirico, Romar Dennis, Brian Sherlock, and Mintzlaff.
How will the Hound bounce back from this disappointing loss? “Quite honestly, I think it starts with practice on Monday,” said Toomey. “I think we’ve got to be a better practice team. We challenged our guys to really look themselves in the mirror and to come out every day, and to not only improve yourself but hold your teammate accountable.”
Loyola will have one week of practice to recuperate before they travel to nearby Annapolis to face Patriot League rival Navy on March 19.
