With 6-5 overtime victory, Duke captures first national title at site of 2007 heartbreak

By Andy Moore

Once again, it came down to the last series, the last shot, a game-winning goal.
Unlike Saturday, there was no game of cat-and-mouse, like when Duke U. senior Ned Crotty stood dancing near the goal before finding senior Max Quinzani for the winning score. Instead, defenseman CJ Costabile cleanly won the faceoff to begin the overtime period, barreled down the center of the field with the ball firmly tucked in the netting of his 6-foot stick, and, while never venturing past the vaguely recognizable center hashmarks of the painted-over football field, made it in front of goalie Scott Rodgers.
Stick up. Shot good. Bedlam.
The longstick midfielder, who battled ankle injuries during the regular season and was scoreless entering the NCAA Tournament, had scored on one of the biggest, baddest goalies in the sport.
“Everyone thinks about that shot [as a kid],” Costabile said. “To actually have it come through, it’s fairy-tale stuff.”

It was only fitting that a shot worthy of myth would cap off one of the most dramatic five-year stretches for any sports team in history.

First came the canceled season and the questions about the program’s future. Then, the heartbreaking loss in the national title game to Johns Hopkins in 2007, and two more missed chances at the title in the Final Four. And, through it all, the looming specter of the 2006 scandal.

But Monday at Baltimore’s M&T Stadium, there was redemption—Duke won its first ever national championship.

On the sidelines were former players Zack Greer and Matt Danowski, remindersalong with fifth-year seniors Crotty, Mike Catalino, Tom Clute, Sam Payton, Steve Schoeffel, Devon Sherwood and Dan Theodoridisof the program’s tumultuous recent history. All involved were fully aware of the win’s magnitude.

“They were all crying,” head coach John Danowski said. “It meant so much to them. For me, the same thing. It’s been a very emotional time, but a very cool time…. There was so much emotion those first two years… And [they] walked on that field today and [felt] good.”
“To go these five years with the fifth-years this year, it really is amazing,” said Schoeffel, who had two goals in the game. “Those guys, the years ahead of us that didn’t win, they were all just as much a part of this, getting to this point. We won it for the guys on the team this year, but also for the guys in the past.”

But after the game, in the safety of the locker room, the players did not think about the overarching significance. It was time—finally—to celebrate.

“We turned on the music and we danced around that trophy like it was a voodoo doll,” said Quinzani, who signed with Duke even when the program’s future was in question four years ago. “It was crazy, but that’s just elation.”

The game will go down in the history books as the lowest-scoring title game in NCAA Tournament history. The Irish, eager to stifle the high-powered Duke offense, were able to control the tempo and ensure that every Blue Devil shot had to be earned through bruising defenders and perhaps the nation’s best goalie.

“It wasn’t the game that people saw the other night with Virginia, but we certainly hoped it wouldn’t be,” Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan said. “We didn’t think we would be in good shape in a game like that, but we thought we could win a game like this.”

Duke was able to only muster 13 shots in the first half, while the Irish had 19. Part of this was due to a deliberately slowed-down Notre Dame offense, which limited the number of possessions for both teams and created long stretches of scoreless play—in the second quarter, for example, neither squad scored until there was 1:24 left in the half.

The lack of offensive fireworks in the first half didn’t change for Duke when it came out of the locker room with a 3-2 lead.

Notre Dame, however, found a quick spark. The Irish erased their deficit quickly with a diving shot by David Earl that fooled freshman goalie Dan Wigrizer with only 1:19 gone from the clock. Aerial acrobatics by Zach Howell, who would finish with two goals, put the Blue Devils back on top, 4-3, at the 9:30 mark. But the lead proved to be short-lived, as Notre Dame midfielder Zach Brenneman rifled a shot with 1:12 left in the quarter past Wigrizer to bring the two teams to a tie going into the final period.

Coming out of the gate in the fourth, a quick series of shots by Justin Turri, Quinzani and Howell all failed to get by the hulking Rodgers, who finished the game with 15 saves. The Irish took possession, and with 11:56 left in the game, took their first lead since the beginning of the first quarter with a Sean Rogers goal.

Turri quickly tied it up, and neither team could take the lead during the contest’s final eight minutes.

In overtime, it all came down to the first faceoff. Costabile, who was part of a three-man rotation at the X along with Payton and Terrence Molinari, got the nod. He did not fail to deliver.

“[Faceoffs] were a battle throughout the game,” Costabile said. “To come out clean, to get my hands in there and pull it out really quick—the ball popped out in front of me, it was awesome.”

Danowski was realistic about the break that Duke got in winning the faceoff, and the quick goal that came from it.

“Winning—it’s awesome,” Danowski said. “But you also know that if the faceoff went the other way, I wouldn’t be sitting here, maybe, and it’d be 6-5. I’ve been around long enough to know that, too. It goes both ways.”Danowski had been on the wrong end for several years at Duke. But Monday, he, along with the rest of his squad, finally got to see what it’s like on the other end of the draw.

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