Duke brought its old-school, in-your-face brand of defense yesterday and drilled UMBC on the consequences of playing meekly.
Shutting out the Retrievers for the opening 36: 42 of the game, the No. 2 Blue Devils rattled No. 9 UMBC, 12-7, before 1,344 at UMBC Stadium.
It wasn't even that close, as UMBC (3-1) scored three times in the last 2 1/2 minutes, including twice against the Blue Devils' reserve defensemen. Duke (5-0) is off to its best start in 48 years.
"We really like to go out and pressure the ball," Duke defensive midfielder Tim Knowles said. "It makes them become athletes; it makes them try to run by us 30 yards from the goal. And we felt they weren't going to be able to do that."
Unlike the recent national trend, the Blue Devils incorporate a daring, man-to-man defensive approach that is light on double teams and heavy on confrontation.
The Duke defensemen physically harassed the Retrievers, stripping them of the ball more times than they put shots on goal in the first half. Duke's defensive vise flustered UMBC, which misfired on its first 17 shots and had nearly twice as many unforced turnovers as goals.
Meanwhile, the Blue Devils' offense attacked in waves, scoring the game's first six goals and staking Duke to an 8-1 advantage to start the fourth quarter.
"I wasn't pleased with our game as far as the decisions that we made," UMBC coach Don Zimmerman said. "But give Duke credit. They're an awfully good lacrosse team and put us in some pressure situations. But our guys have to learn to play through the pressure situations and stick to the game plan."
UMBC relies on working the ball to Jeff Ratcliffe in the crease for easy opportunities. However, Ratcliffe found little room while being shadowed by Duke's Palin Archer, a 6-foot-3, 235-pound defenseman, who didn't slide away since the other Blue Devils defenders never got beat.
The Retrievers also feed off the all-around play of Dan Marohl and Chris Turner, who were negated by Duke's Dan Umbel and Steve Card.
Umbel methodically silenced Marohl, UMBC's top goal-scorer who was already slowed by a hamstring injury. And Card hassled Turner with a variety of punishing checks as a result of an insightful scouting report.
"Watching the film, he showed he's strictly a dominating right-handed player," Card said. "So I took away a lot of his strength and almost wanted him to take a chance with his left hand. I finally realized that he didn't want to go to his left hand."
The Retrievers have also prided themselves on blanking the opposition's extra-man unit, allowing just one goal in 19 man-down situations entering yesterday's game. But Duke solved that, too.
The Blue Devils converted on their first two shots on extra-man situations, and finished with four man-up goals on six chances. Two of those extra-man goals came in a two-minute span of the first quarter, when Duke scored three goals and UMBC never had the ball in its attack zone.
The Retrievers' futility carried into the second quarter, when UMBC was called for its second offside of the half. On the ensuing whistle, the Blue Devils sprinted past the Retrievers, capitalizing on their hustle when Greg Patchak found T. J. Durnan for an uncontested, point-blank shot to make it 5-0 with 1: 40 left in the second quarter.
That effort characterized the day for UMBC, which was shut out in a half for the first time in five years and never reduced the deficit below five for the remainder of the game.
"Right now, the team is down and they should be -- we lost," Zimmerman said. "We had an opportunity that we didn't cash in on. But we don't have a lot of time to prepare for Georgetown on Sunday. These guys have to either walk away feeling sorry for themselves or angry about today's performance. Sunday's game will tell a lot about this team."
Pub Date: 3/18/99