Both teams in the Virginia-Duke men’s lacrosse game may be willing to make the argument that its team is the underdog.
Duke (8-3, 1-1 ACC), ranked at the bottom of the ACC at the beginning of the year, will face the only undefeated No. 1 team in the country Saturday. Despite the No. 1 ranking, however, Virginia (12-0, 2-0 ACC) will face tough competition tomorrow. No. 8 Duke has exceeded expectations, posting a solid 8-3 record with one win and one loss coming in ACC play. Although the Blue Devils have lost two games against ranked opponents, they have defeated a slurry of other ranked teams: then-No. 20 Bucknell, then-No. 15 Colgate, then-No. 14 Loyola and then-No. 19 Georgetown. Duke’s best win this season came four weeks ago when the Blue Devils beat then-No. 8 North Carolina with a four-goal margin. Virginia, on the other hand, only squeaked by North Carolina 11-10.
Duke is a “really tough team — really talented offensively,” Junior midfielder Max Pomper said. “They have historically had a lot of success against us.”
Pomper noted that Virginia is 0-5 against Duke in the past five meetings between the two conference foes. No Cavalier currently on the team has defeated a Blue Devil. Pomper, himself a four-year Virginia veteran, has lost to Duke four times in his stead at the University.
“In the past couple years, we’ve played some up-and-down games with Duke,” senior defenseman Matt Kelly said. “We played seven to six in an overtime game two years ago. We had a shootout once. [But] last year they beat us by eight.”
The one-sided nature of the recent Virginia-Duke series may seem unusual given the quality of recent Virginia teams, but it is not without some explanation.
“Duke’s a team that, over the past few years, has been maybe more athletic than us,” Kelly said. “We haven’t really had a matchup like this so far this year. This might be our toughest game.”
This year’s Duke squad is a different team, though, than previous Duke squads. The Blue Devils lost many of their key seniors this past offseason, including midfielder Zack Greer and attackman Matt Danowski.
“They look a lot different this year, obviously losing all those guys,” senior attackman Garrett Billings said. “You lose Matt Danowski — there is no way it can’t hurt your team.”
Pomper, however, said though Duke may have a new face, it is still the same powerhouse it has always been.
“They lost a bunch of fifth-year guys that were really talented,” Pomper said. “But they are Duke. They still have great players — they are a great program. So they have guys who come off the bench who haven’t played a bunch in their career that are still real talented. So we aren’t overlooking them by any means. They are without Matt Danowski but they are still really talented.”
Having already defeated North Carolina and Maryland, the Cavaliers will play this weekend for both a regular season conference title and the No. 1 seed in the ACC tournament. Virginia’s seniors also will be hoping to get a win against Duke before they graduate, and the team as a whole will look to continue its quest for perfection. Either way in Durham, one streak — the Cavaliers’ undefeated run, or the Blue Devils’ recent success against Virginia — will come to an end.
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