Duke upsets ND to earn trip to lacrosse finals vs. Syracuse, winners over UNC

acclaxDuke upset Notre Dame while Syracuse upset North Carolina to set up a Duke-Syracuse ACC lacrosse final Sunday.

Fourth-seeded Duke jumped out to a big lead and withstood a late comeback attempt to defeat top-seeded and No. 1-ranked Notre Dame, 13-8, Friday night in the semifinals of the 2015 ACC Men’s Lacrosse Championship at PPL Park in Philadelphia.

Second-ranked North Carolina came from down by three in the second half to tie fourth-ranked (third-seeded) Syracuse 8-8 in the fourth quarter. But, while the Tar Heels had held the Orange scoreless for almost 25 minutes, Syracuse’s Kevin Rice wrapped around from behind the goal to score with 1:48 left to give the Orange a 9-8 victory.

A controversial offsides call on UNC’s Chad Tutton, who had scored two straight goals to tie it at 8, ended any chance the Tar Heels had to come behind in the last minute.

“I thought it was a great call myself,” Syracuse coach John Desko said with a wry smile. “I didn’t really see it.”

Case Matheis led the way for Duke with four goals on seven shots, with Justin Guterding adding three goals in a rematch of the 2014 NCAA National Championship game. With the win, the Blue Devils improved to 11-4 and avenged a 15-10 regular season loss to the Irish on April 4.

“It’s awesome,” said Matheis on reaching the championship game. “In my first two years we lost in the semis. Those games are turning points in that they were losses. This time we won and it’s another turning point in building our confidence and building our team dynamic.”

UNC-Syracuse box score

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.