The Duke Blue Devils, the second overall seed in the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship, punched their ticket to the quarterfinals with a 19-7 win over Utah on Saturday.
The Blue Devils hosted the Utes at Koskinen Stadium for their first taste of postseason action, desperate to avenge a loss to Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament title game.
Utah got on the board first, a goal from Tyler Bradbury in the opening three minutes, but everything after that came up Blue Devils. Dyson Williams and Josh Zawada both scored in the ensuing four minutes to push Duke ahead. Utah pulled even minutes later, but Duke rattled off five goals in a four-minute span to effectively stun the Utes into submission.
Brennan O’Neill, the No. 1 pick in the recent Premier Lacrosse League draft, scored two of the five goals over the scoring spree and assisted on two of Duke’s four other first-period goals. After 15 minutes of action, the Blue Devils led by five.
Williams added another goal in the opening minute of the second, and the Utes found themselves in an inescapable hole. Back-to-back goals pulled Utah within four, but Duke tacked on three more before the end of the opening half to stretch things back to 11-5.
Took care of business 😈
Onto @NCAALAX Quarterfinals!#GoDuke pic.twitter.com/Zl4D2UUnDn
— Duke Men's Lacrosse (@DukeMLAX) May 11, 2024
The rest of the game passed uneventfully outside of another scoring run from the Blue Devils, this time featuring three goals in less than a minute near the end of the third.
Williams ended the afternoon with a game-high five goals, nearly matching Utah entirely by himself. Zawada had the best game of the day, however, scoring four goals and adding four more assists to help produce almost half of Duke’s scoring.
The Blue Devils will play the winner of No. 7 Maryland and Princeton after their Saturday night battle.