Duke Lacrosse: Blue Devils walk off Irish and advance to Final Four

The Duke Lacrosse team walked off the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament and now advance to the Final Four.

It was a game of runs, but the Duke Blue Devils ultimately ended up on top of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament to advance to the Final Four.

The Blue Devils jumped out to an early 4-0 lead, but the Irish would then post four unanswered goals to tie things up in the second quarter.

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Duke would answer the Notre Dame run with a run of its own, scoring the next three goals of the game to lead 7-4.

Notre Dame was able to net one goal before halftime to cut the Blue Devil lead to two at the break.

The Fighting Irish came out of the locker room firing to net the first two goals to tie things up at seven.

However, the Blue Devils had another answer in them, scoring the next three goals of the game.

Four Duke goals, followed by four Notre Dame goals, answered by three Duke goals, tied with three more Notre Dame goals, finally ending with three more Duke goals to make the score 10-7 Blue Devils.

The teams traded goals at the end of the third quarter to make thins 11-8 Duke headed to what many believed was the last 15 minutes of the game.

Notre Dame started the fourth quarter on a 4-0 run, taking its first lead of the game at 12-11.

Duke responded with two goals of its own to take the lead back but the Irish would get the equalizer with under 90 seconds to go.

Tied at 13, Notre Dame won the ensuing face-off and had possession for the remainder of the game, but could not find a way to get the go ahead goal before regulation ended.

Cade Van Raaphorst won the opening face-off in overtime and it took Duke nearly the entire 80 second shot clock to get the game winning goal but Joe Robertson was able to find the back of the net to send the Blue Devils to the Final Four, winning 14-13.

A very bad and scary note for Duke during the game was the injury to freshman Wilson Stephenson who had to be stretched and carted off before being placed in an ambulance and taken away from the stadium.

CJ Carpenter said after the game that in the team huddle while Stephenson was down the message was “win it for Willy” and they did.

Carpenter and Robertson netted hat tricks for the Blue Devils this afternoon while Sean Lowrie and Joey Manown both scored two goals each.

Nakeie Montgomery, Jake Seau, Kevin Quigley, and Brad Smith all scored one goal while Turner Uppgren made nine saves on the day.

Duke will face another ACC foe next Saturday at the Final Four in Philadelphia as the Virginia Cavaliers were able to defeat the Maryland Terrapins, erasing a five goal deficit to win in overtime.

The Final Four will be played at Lincoln Financial Field and can also be seen on ESPN2.

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