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Editor: Andrew Long

Managing Editor: Rachael Kaplan

Blog Editor: Mackenzie Sheehy

Assistant Blog Editors: Ranjan Jindal, Dom Fenoglio

Features Editor: Sophie Levenson

Photo Editor: Morgan Chu

Special thanks to Editor-in-Chief Audrey Wang, Rachael Kaplan, Photo Editors Alyssa Ting and Abigail Bromberger and Graphics Editor May Fu.

Founded in 2007, The Chronicle’s sports blog, the Blue Zone, features analysis on men’s basketball, women’s basketball, football and more to supplement regular daily coverage. It can be read at: www.dukechronicle.com/section/blue-zone

Founded in 1983, sportswrap is the weekly sports supplement published by The Chronicle. Its content along with daily coverage of Duke’s 27 varsity sports can be viewed at: www.dukechronicle.com/section/sport

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3 A game-tying home run in the ninth inning wasn’t enough as Duke baseball’s ACC tournament aspirations fell short in a thriller against N.C. State. However, the Blue Devils’ keys to success all season long may bear fruit if they can adapt to growing adversity, our Dom Fenoglio writes.

5 Duke softball made history once this season by hosting an NCAA regional, and did it again by advancing to a second-straight Super Regional and the first to ever be hosted in Durham.

7 After a game that went deep into the night and came down to one incredibly tense final match, Duke women’s tennis dropped a heartbreaker to UCLA in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

8-9 With a No. 1 ranking to its name, Duke men’s lacrosse traveled to familiar territory in Philadelphia for the Final Four with outspoken title aspirations — and a target on its back.

11 Despite a preseason No. 11 ranking, Duke women’s lacrosse endured a disappointing 2023 season. To return to the national stage, a new crop of players must prove their talent, writes our Rachael Kaplan.

13 Duke track and field’s women’s team capped its outdoor season commandingly at the ACC Championships, winning the event by a recordsetting margin.

14 A record-breaking season for Duke men’s tennis came to an end in the Super Regionals against ACC champion Virginia.

Any Duke student has made the familiar walk from Abele Quad past the Chapel and the plaza and into the athletic quarter. It has been a busy spring over there.

At Ambler Tennis Stadium, two exceptional seasons by the men’s and women’s tennis teams, which combined for 22 ACC wins, culminated in thrilling, but ultimately heartbreaking, NCAA tournament journeys. At Morris Williams Stadium, women’s track and field won the ACC Championships at a canter, setting multiple records in the process. At Jack Coombs Field, baseball challenged for the conference’s top spot and strung together numerous and impressive ranked-series wins before stumbling late.

Andrew Long

At Duke Softball Stadium, a program in just its sixth season dominated the NCAA regional and secured a spot in its secondstraight NCAA Super Regional, the first to ever be hosted in Durham.

At Koskinen Stadium, it was a tale of two seasons for women’s and men’s lacrosse. The women struggled for momentum against ACC foes and missed the tournament, but drawcontrol specialist Maddie Jenner became the all-time NCAA leader at the spot. Men’s lacrosse, on the other hand, made its fourth Final Four in five seasons, finished the season ranked No. 1 and traveled to Philadelphia with eyes locked on national championship number four.

Such is the fortunate life of a sports reporter for The Chronicle: The stories never stop and never fail to enchant, excite and entertain. It’s our distinct privilege to bring each and every one to you, and are thrilled to have you with us every step of the way.

Duke’s ACC tournament dream ends in extra innings against N.C. State

Column: Duke has no room for error in the postseason

In April, the Blue Devils were in the middle of a 15-3 stretch that saw them climb into the top 10 nationally. In March, they struggled to string together consistency near the bottom of the conference. And in February, no one had any expectations for an inexperienced Duke team with plenty of question marks.

Today, while head coach Chris Pollard has engineered a team performing far beyond its expectations, questions still remain. The Blue Devils faltered at the end of the regular season, dropping two series they were in every position to win: First a home series against thenbottom-of-theconference Georgia Tech and then an away bout against Miami that they were one strike away from winning. They limped into the ACC tournament, only to lose their first game to N.C. State 8-7 in extra innings.

By Caleb Dudley Staff Writer

Sometimes the best stories don’t have a fairytale ending.

Coming into the ACC tournament, Duke had two priorities: beat N.C. State and beat Miami, allowing for the Blue Devils to reach the semifinals. No. 5-seed Duke failed to complete the former, falling to the ninth-seeded Wolfpack 8-7 Tuesday night in an 11-inning thriller.

The tumultuous game, which lasted roughly four hours not counting a delay to the start time, saw 13 pitchers throw in total and a combined tally of 22 hits in an opening-round game for the ages. Just when it seemed the Blue Devils were going to do the unthinkable and come back from the jaws of defeat, their hopes were crushed as N.C. State designated hitter Cannon Peebles’ RBI single was the final blow for Duke’s title dreams in Durham.

“A tremendous baseball game, great atmosphere, two really good teams. N.C. State came out and kind of punched us in the mouth early, [I was] really impressed by their offense,” head coach Chris Pollard said. “And we got on our heels a little bit through those first three innings, we gave them some free bases with walks and some errors in that. That led to those innings getting away from us a little bit.”

The nightcap at Durham Bulls Athletic Park reached a fever pitch in the bottom of the ninth, as Duke’s bubbling momentum over the latter half of the game finally allowed the Blue Devils to answer their early six-run deficit. After a oneout single by Alex Stone, MJ Metz produced the highlight of the game for Pollard’s team, crushing a home run into the right field bleachers to tie the game at seven apiece, Duke’s first runs of the game that came without two outs. An error that allowed Tyler Albright to reach followed by a Cole Hebble single gave the Duke faithful some hope that the Blue Devils would walk it off in regulation, but the Wolfpack pitching staff answered the bell, forcing a Damon Lux flyout to secure extra baseball.

The middle innings of the game were undoubtedly dominated by the Blue Devils, with Duke blanking N.C. State for seven straight innings while putting up six runs of its own. A large part of this success was the play of the middle relievers Pollard turned to, as Jason White, Charlie Beilenson and Fran Oschell III were dominant, putting up 7.2 scoreless innings combined.

“Tremendous job by Jason White and Charlie Beilinson and Fran Oschell [III] to settle the game down for us and to allow our offense to get going to get back in it,” Pollard said.

Freshman Aidan Weaver took the mound to begin the game for the Blue Devils. Unfortunately for Pollard, this strategy did not age well, as the right-hander was chased out of the game after the first three batters tagged him for a walk, a home run and a single, giving the Wolfpack an early 2-0 lead. Adam Boucher came in relief of Weaver, working his way out of a jam by inducing a doubleplay to stop the bleeding.

Duke answered back in the bottom half of the first frame, as a throwing error on a Jay Beshears grounder followed by an Alex Stone double that just got past the outstretched glove of the right fielder cut the N.C. State lead down to one.

The Wolfpack artillery continued its onslaught in the second inning, adding two more runs. Another lead off a walk led to an RBI for the away team, as Kalae Harrison doubled to chase Boucher out of the game. Pollard elected to trot out Owen Proskch as the next arm in the game, and he proceeded to give up a single before getting out of the inning, leaving N.C. State with a 4-1 lead after its first two plate appearances.

The third inning was largely the same story as the previous two, as the Wolfpack offense continued to just impose their will on the Blue Devil pitching staff, tacking on three more runs with a flurry of walks and timely hitting. White was the next pitcher to come out of the bullpen for Duke, and he allowed one run on a fielder’s choice before escaping the inning.

Despite their struggles on the mound, the Blue Devils refused to go away, tacking on two runs in the bottom of the fourth. After a Beshears single to lead off the inning, Stone was walked, setting up Albright with an opportunity to hit with two runners in scoring position. The freshman came through big, ripping a single to

left field to make it a 7-3 ball game. However, a replay review stifled the Duke rally, as a hit-bypitch call was overturned in favor of N.C. State, cutting the inning short.

The sixth inning also saw the Blue Devils put some pressure on the Wolfpack, as three hits strung together, capped off by an Albright RBI single cut the deficit down to three with as many innings left to play.

Duke’s comeback bid seemed to come to a head in the bottom of the seventh inning, as the meat of the order threatened the N.C. State pitching staff, only to come up just short of tying the game up. An Alex Mooney single was coupled with an error on Beshears’ grounder, bringing up red-hot Stone. With two outs, the catcher came through, knocking in a run with a blooper to left center to make it 7-5. However, just when it seemed like Duke was due to break the game open, Metz was robbed of a big hit as he destroyed that ball that the right fielder barely got to in order to stop the rally.

The eighth inning had the makings of another fruitful one, as Giovanni DiGiacomo led off with a line drive that came straight back to the mound, bouncing off the pitcher’s foot for a single. However, the bad luck struck the Blue Devil offense again, as Albright lined a ball directly into the shift, taking away a single. Devin Obee was brought in as a pinch hitter for Luke Storm, and almost delivered the tying blow, missing a home run by just a few feet left of the foul pole. After Mooney’s intentional walk, it was all up to Andrew Fischer to deliver. Much to the dismay of the Blue Devil fans, Fischer was rung up on a strike call in a 3-2 count with the bases loaded, taking the air out of the Duke dugout.

Duke will take the field again Friday for its second game of pool play, a rematch with No. 4-seed Miami at 3 p.m. This will be its last game of the week in Durham, as the loss to the Wolfpack eliminates the possibility of the semifinals for the Blue Devils.

“I thought we did a really good job of getting back to our competitive identity for the second half of the game today,” Pollard said “Carry that into Friday, and let that really get us where we want to be going into the NCAA tournament a week from Friday.”

So, while Duke has shown its capability to compete against any team in the country, the margin of error for this team is razor thin.

The difference between the Blue Devils’ red-hot April and lukewarm May was not anything drastic; even an injury to All-ACC freshman Andrew Fischer did not stop Duke from thoroughly beating then-No. 11 Virginia. Rather, small miscues began to accumulate. The team started leaving more runners on base (26 alone in the Georgia Tech series), pitchers weren’t as sharp and a usually solid defense became porous.

A major reason these mistakes amplified into a noticeable decline is the structure of the team’s pitching staff. Due to a preseason injury to Luke Fox and an early-season injury to Jonathan Santucci, Pollard has relied on a pitch-by-committee approach, rarely using a pitcher for more than three innings at a time. While this tactic worked beautifully for Duke throughout the season — it finished the regular season with the seventh-best ERA in the nation at 3.94 — it also drastically increased the volatility of its gameplan.

Take, for example, the last game of the Blue Devils’ regular season, a pivotal matchup against Miami. A day removed from a heartbreaking extra-inning loss, Pollard had to put together a plan to attack the Hurricanes while resting a number of arms. So, when a storm delayed the game for over an hour after the first inning and forced starting pitcher Ryan Higgins out of the game, Duke had to adapt on the fly. The outcome was not pretty, a 10-1 loss that revealed a glaring problem for the Blue Devils.

The damage did not stop there, as Duke still felt the aftereffects of the weekend in its ACC tournament game against the Wolfpack. With a number of his most reliable pitchers taxed and still more resting for the upcoming NCAA tournament, Pollard turned to a strikingly similar set of arms as he did in the team’s game-two loss to Miami. Freshman Aidan Weaver, junior Adam Boucher, freshman Owen Proksch, graduate student Charlie Beilenson, sophomore Jimmy Romano and senior Jason White all threw for the Blue Devils in both games.

The only pitcher who threw against Miami

See BASEBALL on Page 14

Courtesy of Nat LeDonne/Duke Athletics

Sophomore Fran Oschell III was one of eight Blue Devil pitchers to take the mound during Duke’s ACC tournament loss to N.C. State.

Dom Fenoglio

Editor’s note: This article was originally published May 24, ahead of the NCAA Selection Show and Duke’s game against Miami.

Duke advances to Super Regional on home turf

D’Auna Jennings starred offensively, going 4-for-4 and scoring twice, while designated player Kelsey Zampa drove her in and scored a run herself in just her ninth start of the year. Despite some wildness and winding at-bats, the pitching staff also got it done, allowing six walks but just two hits.

In the early frames, 49ers pitcher Sam Gress was locked in, not facing more than four Blue Devil batters in any inning before the sixth. In the bottom halves, things didn’t start so surely for Duke.

After closing out the first inning 1-2-3, Duke starter Jala Wright got in a jam quickly in the second. She walked the first batter she faced, mostly missing down in the dirt, before throwing eight straight balls to load the bases. This brought head coach Marissa Young out for a pitching change, subbing in Cassidy Curd.

pitching staff. “If something’s not working, like today; I just ran out of gas. Lillie had my back no matter what happened in the dugout. Same thing, vice versa.”

Duke’s batters worked their way onto the scoreboard in the sixth. Jennings started things off when she reached first on her third hit of the day, a bouncer over the head of the 49ers’ shortstop. The freshman slap-hitter went 0-for-2 in the Regional opener against George Mason, including getting called out due to exiting the box on one swing, but she was keyed in against Charlotte. After Deja Davis laid down a textbook bunt for a single, Jennings turned on the jets to score when Aminah Vega singled to center.

count full, she lined a belt-high pitch to the opposite field for a four-bagger to put the 49ers ahead again.

“It’s tough when you’ve played a team [three] times in a season — you know each other kind of inside and out,” said Young.

But Duke wouldn’t be held back for long, as some nifty base running allowed it to go ahead for good in the top of the seventh. Gisele Tapia fouled off five pitches before starting things off with a double to the right center gap, bringing Zampa to the plate.

By Molly Honecker

Sports Editor

For The Blue Devils’ first NCAA Super Regional last year, they flew cross-country to California. This year, they’ve flipped the script. After being held scoreless for the first five frames, No. 8-seed Duke took a thrilling 4-2 victory against Charlotte, pushing itself to the next round of the tournament, which will bring No. 9-seed Stanford to Bull City.

Curd collected a much-needed called strike with her first pitch, but her next sailed high above the reaching glove of catcher Kelly Torres. After collecting the ball off the backstop, Torres ran it a few steps back towards home plate before underhanding it to Curd, which left just enough time for Charlotte left fielder MaKalah Mitchell to score off the wild pitch.

Curd closed out the inning after that, and mostly silenced the power-laden Charlotte lineup for the rest of the game with her signature high heat, finishing with 10 strikeouts. When she issued a four-pitch walk of her own to bring the winning run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh, however, Young didn’t hesitate to sub in Lillie Walker, who closed things out for her fourth save of the year.

“I think all of us do a really good job backing each other up,” said Curd on the

“I think a big thing for me has always been like my timing piece,” said Jennings on her performance. “When we first played George Mason, I was caught out of the box. I went back in the lab and figured out what I needed to do to make my adjustment. Once I figured out the timing, my footwork, it’s pretty much back to normal. I was just thinking about seeing the ball out in front, using my chop, reading the defense, beating the shift and just doing my job — not trying to do too much.”

Up until the sixth, the 49ers had been held hitless, and had only reached base via walk. Curd was stellar, but this was her third appearance against the Charlotte lineup on the season, and a few batters fouled off multiple pitches from her, including Mitchell. While the Niners boast the 10th-highest rate of home runs per game in the nation, Mitchell had never hit one before Sunday in her Charlotte career. After fouling off four and bringing the

Morgan Chu | Sports Photography Editor D’Auna Jennings and Jada Baker celebrate after Duke advanced to the Super Regional.

Associate

Morgan Chu | Sports Photography Editor Freshman Cassidy Curd pitches during Duke’s win against Charlotte.

See SOFTBALL on Page 14

Duke bows out of NCAA tournament to UCLA

By Anna Newberry Staff Writer

Summer days drifted away, as did Duke’s 2023 season.

After a quick 4-0 sweep of William & Mary Friday evening at home to advance to round two of the NCAA tournament, the sixthseeded Blue Devils ended their season in a heartbreaking loss to UCLA Saturday evening.

“You let a team hang around and hang around, they’re gonna gain a little confidence, which is what they did,” Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth said. “I think at the end they played with more confidence than we did. I think we played a little bit defensive, a little bit scared — not having been in a situation where we had let matches just slip away.”

Duke swept the Tribe Friday, winning its 27th-straight home match and improving its NCAA tournament home record to 35-2. In the quickest win of the season, taking only 1:28, the Blue Devils dominated the doubles point and only surrendered three games across all three courts. Senior Chloe Beck collected her 30th singles win of the season, and clinched the 4-0 win for Duke.

In contrast to their sweep Friday, the Blue Devils struggled to finish matches and hold onto leads Saturday, as four sets went to tiebreakers. Graduate student Briana

Shvets dominated the first set of her singles match, winning 6-0 and winning nine straight games to lead the second set 3-0 before her opponent, Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer, tied it at 3-3. After regaining her lead at 5-3, the second set ended in a tiebreaker. Despite having a 5-2 early lead in the tiebreaker, Shvets surrendered the tiebreaker 7-5 and the third set 6-3, failing to complete on the 6-0 and 3-0 leads in the match.

“Usually, we’ve been good all year about closing out games and closing out

sets and close out matches. When it came to those crunch times, they stepped up and we backed off a little. They just started to gain more confidence and became more vocal, ” Ashworth said about the long matches Saturday.

A doubles challenge by the Bruins (15-7) gave rise for Duke momentum as the point came down to Beck and Ellie Coleman’s match on court one, but Coleman and Beck clinched the doubles point for the Blue Devils in a 7-4 tiebreak win.

“I thought we could gain a little momentum there (doubles), but that’s exactly what happened,” Ashworth said on whether or not the match came down to the tiebreakers and deuce points.

With four tiebreakers in the match, Duke only won one of them in the Beck and Coleman’s doubles match. After gaining a 4-1 lead, graduate student Georgia Drummy lost the first set 6-4 to UCLA’s Kimmi Hance. The second set comprised seven straight deuce points and nine overall before Drummy fell 7-5, despite having 2-0 lead in the second set and close games.

The Blue Devils were without key player and graduate student Cameron Morra for the second-straight match Saturday, as she played neither Friday versus William & Mary nor against the Bruins. Morra, who injured her ankle during practice in April, normally plays No. 2 singles, shifting the lineup significantly.

“We have really good players, and so you know, it’s definitely not an excuse,” Ashworth said. “We trust who we have on the court and we gave ourselves opportunities.”

The tiebreaks and deuces all evened out as the match was tied 3-3 overall and came down to graduate student Iuliia Bryzgalova and another tiebreak. After a first-set tiebreak 7-3 loss, Brzgalova stretched a 2-0 lead before forcing another set tiebreak for the match. A tiebreak comeback later by UCLA’s Sasha Vagramov, who was down 3-0, was able to clinch the match with an 8-6 win against Bryzgalova.

Courtesy of Duke Athletics

Sophomore Emma Jackson rallies during Duke’s evening match with William & Mary.

UCLA 4 DUKE 3

See W. TENNIS on Page 14

Editor’s note: This article was originally published May 7 before the NCAA Singles Championships began.

NOT ALWAYS SUNNY

Duke falls in NCAA title game to Notre Dame

By Andrew Long Sports Editor

PHILADELPHIA—History, for all of its academic merits, is perhaps most useful in the fact that it is often the future’s most reliable predictor.

In 2010 and 2014, Duke bested Notre Dame in the national title game, winning three other postseason meetings in between and afterward. History was on the Blue Devils’ side leading into Monday afternoon’s NCAA championship game at Lincoln Financial Field, but they quickly learned the hard truth of relying on the past to inform one’s future.

Despite a late-game rally, the top-seeded Blue Devils were ultimately overwhelmed 13-9 by No. 3-seed Notre Dame, gifting the Fighting Irish their first national championship in program history and extending a nine-year title drought for head coach John Danowski and his Duke team.

“A well-deserved run,” Danowski said. “They’ve been terrific all year from day one. And we’re proud of them, being partners in the Atlantic Coast Conference. If we’re gonna lose to somebody, we lose to somebody in our conference. So congratulations to the Fighting Irish.”

Upon the second-half restart, Duke started to find some offensive juice after a wasteful first half. Leadmon popped it to a wide-open Jack Gray, who slotted it low and hard. Brennan O’Neill curled around the crease and found room after Dyson Williams’ pick sent his defender to the floor, who subsequently received the ball and low-handed it under Notre Dame goalie Liam Entenmann. Garrett Leadmon missiled it top-right, and after more than 30 minutes of scoreless lacrosse, Duke had scored three in less than two minutes and had turned a 6-1 halftime deficit into 6-4.

O’Neill rifled it bottom right shortly after, bringing it within one. Jeffery Ricciardelli and Aidan Danenza traded goals either side of a twominute man-down for the Blue Devils, setting the game on a knife’s edge for an incredibly tense final quarter. It only got tenser when a

Notre Dame own goal tied it up at 7-7, the first time the contest was level since the Fighting Irish equalized on Leadmon’s opener.

Two late goals by Notre Dame to close out the third made Duke’s task all the more daunting in the fourth quarter, compounded by an Eric Dobson goal that made it 10-7. Some late-game heroics by Entenmann shut the door on the Blue Devil comeback bid, snuffing out a slew of good shots by the likes of Williams and Charles Balsamo, all while the Fighting Irish grabbed a few more goals of their own to buoy the final scoreline.

“The last [goal] bothered me, but I don’t think it bothered the team in that they’d just come back from a five-goal deficit,” Danowski said. “So two goals, it’s not insurmountable ... We hung in there, kept fighting. So, I don’t think the team was deflated, I think they thought that a two-goal lead is not the end of the world.”

“A player like [Entenmann] can really change the game,” Williams said when asked about

changing the game plan to deal with him. “He stood on his head. But once again, it’s a 6-by6 net, and you just got to shoot, so shoot. You can’t change the way you play just because things aren’t going your way.”

This tale-of-two-halves was made all the more enthralling by the fact that Leadmon, the Blue Devils’ overtime hero from their semifinal win against Penn State drew first blood, weaving past an army of Fighting Irish defenders to dunk it right on the doorstep past Entenmann. It didn’t seem like it then, but Leadmon’s opener would be the only time Duke celebrated in the first half, despite 24 shots and nine on goal. Most emblematic of the Blue Devils’ perplexing lack of attacking fluidity was a series of shots midway through the second quarter that bore no fruit, allowing Quinn McCahon to take it on the fast break and punch it from half field into an empty net.

A shaky performance by Duke goalie William Helm was in many ways responsible

for Duke’s tenser-than-anticipated Final Four bout with the Nittany Lions, and Entenmann made clear early on that goalkeeping errors would not be the reason the Fighting Irish would lose this game. The defense in front of him certainly helped, holding a Blue Devil attack that has torched nearly all opponents it has faced this season at pole’s length.

The Blue Devils nearly broke that defensive rigidity after Owen Caputo was pushed to the ground and Duke earned a man-up opportunity, but Williams’ carve to the crease culminated in a soft bouncer that Entenmann gobbled. Balsamo’s shot as the penalty clock expired hit the side netting and the ball was back in Notre Dame’s sticks, and soon, the Blue Devil net courtesy of Chris Kavanagh.

Then came a two-minute, nonreleasable Duke penalty on All-American defender Kenny Brower, setting up a nervous close to a first quarter that the Blue Devils were desperate to escape from. They stood firm and weathered the Fighting Irish’s attacking storm, earning back their colossal longpole before scuffing yet another shot at Entenmann’s feet.

Notre Dame once again made Duke pay for its poor shot selection and execution, capitalizing on a loose-ball scuffle just outside the circle to pop it over Helm’s head for a 4-1 advantage. Even when the Blue Devils had another man-up opportunity they couldn’t break down the Fighting Irish defensive line, skying two shots before surrendering it on a shot clock violation. Fast break, goal. 5-1 Notre Dame.

With the defeat, Duke’s season — in which it won the ACC title outright and finished the year unbeaten at home — comes to a close, putting the Blue Devils’ all-time NCAA final record at 3-4.

“Every season brings a new journey,” Williams said. “And we try not to dwell too much on on the past. You just start with a fresh mindset, and I thought that this year we did a great job with that. We didn’t think too much.”

“Every year is a new journey,” Brower added. “New guys, new team, but the standard doesn’t change. So it continues be our goal to get back here eventually one day, and win.”

Courtesy of Duke Athletics

Junior attacker Brennan O’Neill (left) and senior attacker Dyson Williams (right) in Duke’s NCAA championship defeat to Notre Dame

Courtesy of Duke Athletics

Freshman midfielder Charles Balsamo prepares to shoot under double coverage by Notre Dame.

IN PHILADELPHIA

Column: Duke’s loss proves that history doesn’t matter

PHILADELPHIA— Duke and Notre Dame have history.

Before this year, the Fighting Irish had appeared in the NCAA championship game twice, in 2010 and 2014. The Blue Devils beat them both times. In fact, in the teams’ five postseason meetings since 2010, Duke had won all five.

But then, Monday afternoon, Notre Dame made history of its own.

Despite 41 years as a varsity program and a reputation as one of the nation’s premier programs, the Fighting Irish had never won it all. Until it did. In the program’s 42nd year and 26th go at the tournament, Notre Dame got it done. In a remarkable game that, if odd, never ceased to entertain, the Fighting Irish shook the Devil off their back by defeating No. 1-overall seed Duke 13-9 in spite of all that history stacked in the Blue Devils’ favor.

A writer would call that a poetic narrative. A coach doesn’t call that anything, because he’s not thinking about it that way.

“[Past losses to Duke are] obviously not something I’ve thought much about, but clearly, I wasn’t disappointed that Duke was the last one standing with us,” Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan said. “You’re preparing [for the title game matchup] in less than 48 hours … We’ve played each other six times now in the last three years, so it’s kind of nice to have that familiarity. As for the poetry of the whole thing, I’ll leave that to you.”

For a world as invested in and obsessed with narrative as the sports world is, Corrigan’s words pose a challenge to conventional wisdom. Conventional sports wisdom states that certain teams always choke in the postseason, certain teams always beat certain other teams, and whatever else has been levied against a team with a vague gesture to history as evidence. These charges come less as an

indictment on any one season’s roster and are more like a generational curse that decides outcomes by virtue of the logo on a jersey alone.

Monday afternoon proved exactly why conventional wisdom fails so often in sports. In the postgame press conference, senior Notre Dame star and Tewaaraton Award finalist Pat Kavanagh held his hand to his hip and said he was “this big” when his older brother Matt was a freshman at Notre Dame in 2013. It was a cute anecdote about a family that has given much to

Notre Dame lacrosse, but it also serves to illustrate why history doesn’t matter all that much. Why would a group of players dwell on what their program did when they were children?

Better yet, why should what happened when they were children dictate what a team led by a Tewaaraton finalist and the nation’s best goalie, among others, can accomplish?

The sentiment holds true for the victors and the losers. Just as history couldn’t limit what the Fighting Irish could accomplish, history is also no consolation for the Blue Devils as they leave Philadelphia empty-handed.

“Every year is a new journey,” Duke senior defender Kenny Brower said. “New guys, new team, but the standard doesn’t change. So it continues be our goal to get back here eventually one day, and win.”

It was a long journey for Duke to make it to the title game. After getting bullied by Maryland in the 2021 Final Four then missing the tournament entirely in 2022 (which Notre Dame did as well, for that matter), the Blue Devils should have entered 2023 with a chip on their shoulder, and to an extent they did. But then the wins kept racking up, and Duke won the ACC regular season championship with a 5-1 conference record. When it earned the No. 1 seed in the tournament as a result, no one was thinking about the disappointments of past seasons.

“At Duke we try not to dwell too much on the past. You just kind of start with a fresh mindset, and I thought this year we did a great job of that,” senior attacker Dyson Williams said. “We didn’t think too much about — didn’t think at all about last year not making it, but kind of made this season its own.”

The tactic worked, and even though they have no national championship to show for them, the Blue Devils have plenty of

positives to look back on from this season. In lieu of reminiscence, though, the biggest positive for Duke is that it returns almost its entire core to take another swing at its title aspirations next year.

So what is history good for, if not to inform the future? In college sports, which by design can see drastic change every year, not all that much, and we should embrace that. History can only paint part of the picture, but the majority is colored in by the group of players that take the field each year. Isn’t that more fun?

No amount of history stacked against Notre Dame could have stopped first-team All-American goalie Liam Entenmann from standing on his head and making 18 saves, nor could it have held back the Fighting Irish’s first-half six-goal onslaught. No amount of history in its favor could have saved Duke from a 30-plus-minute scoring drought, but likewise a scarcity of historical precedent for such a thing couldn’t have stopped the Blue Devils from launching a third-quarter comeback down 6-1 to tie the game at 7-7.

It’s simple. When two exceptional teams meet in the championship, unbelievable things happen, irrespective of what has happened in the past. And when these teams inevitably meet again next year, for as intense as this new chapter in Duke-Notre Dame history was, it will have no bearing on the outcome of that game. That is part of the chaotic beauty of sports.

“I mean, what a great experience,” Duke head coach John Danowski said. “Didn’t win the game; the other team was better today and that happens. But let’s not hang our heads. Let’s be really proud of who you are and what you’ve accomplished and what you’re going to accomplish going forward.”

Courtesy of Duke Athletics

Graduate midfielder Garrett Leadmon, playing in his last Duke game, charges with the ball against Notre Dame.

Courtesy of Duke Athletics Brennan O’Neill, a finalist for the prestigious Tewaaraton Award, winds up a shot against the Fighting Irish.

Sasha Richie

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Column: It’s time for Duke’s next chapter

After a fairytale regular-season run in 2022, Duke began the 2023 season with a No. 11 ranking and conference — and national — title hopes. With Tewaaraton Award nominee and First Team All-American Maddie Jenner, the draw control queen, star goalkeeper Sophia LeRose and attackers Anna Callahan and Eva Greco all returning for fifth years, the Blue Devils’ losses seemed minimal. They were poised for greatness, teetering on the brink of ACC success.

The expectations ignored Duke’s collapse in Chapel Hill to end the regular season, its conference tournament destruction at the hands of Notre Dame and its quick second-round exit from the NCAA tournament.

After three solid nonconference wins to open its season, including a 24-1 victory against Gardner-Webb in which Jenner became the NCAA all-time draw leader, the Blue Devils headed up to Chestnut Hill, Mass. They had beaten Boston College the season prior in epic fashion, seemingly proving their validity as a contender. Less than a year later, they were primed to do the exact same thing.

Duke trailed just 38 seconds in and was never able to catch back up, losing 17-8.

It beat Liberty at home days later, but fell again March 4 to Notre Dame. From there, the dominos just kept on falling. The Blue Devils lost four straight, three of which were ACC contests, before beating East Carolina and finally tallying their first conference win against Pittsburgh. They would lose the remainder of their regular-season

conference matches, their 1-8 ACC record putting them second-to-last in the rankings and marking the worst finish in years.

So, what happened?

Last season, Duke took 9.9 more shots per game than its opponents. It didn’t allow womandown goals, caused nearly as many turnovers as it gave up and utterly dominated in the draw circle. This season, while it still won the majority of possessions, every other margin was tightened or flipped. The biggest difference is in its turnover numbers. In 2022, while playing two more games, the Blue Devils committed 285 turnovers to their opponents’ 300, 231 of which were caused. In 2023 they still gave the ball away 272 times to their opponents’ 258, only causing 191 of those.

All in all, Duke played messier. It was losing precious possessions while its offensive efficiency was decreasing.

More than efficiency, the Blue Devils lacked offensive power. In 2022 the one-two punch of Catriona Barry and Katie DeSimone combined for 116 goals and 178 points. DeSimone’s own numbers dipped from 85 points last season to 66 this season. Barry’s production was simply lost after the fifth-year’s departure.

That is not to say new pieces didn’t emerge in her place. Senior Caroline DeBellis and sophomore Carly Bernstein both saw their stats skyrocket as each put up 20-goal seasons. However, their improvement alone wasn’t enough to keep Duke in the national spotlight.

The Blue Devils are losing some big names this offseason. Jenner has been the face of the program for four years — since her sister graduated — and without a finalized list of returning seniors, next season is ripe with uncertainty. The program has

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been relying on its veterans since the pandemic, preaching experience as the be-all-end-all, the final key to Duke’s success. But those veterans are gone now, and it must turn to its new generation of leaders.

The star-studded class of Kennedy Everson, Kerry Nease, Reilly Traynor and Bernstein will be upperclassmen. The freshmen will be looking to step up. With only three rising seniors, DeSimone, Katie Keller and Maddie McCorkle, the Blue Devils have to change their narrative.

Before the 2022 season, head coach Kerstin Kimel said of her incoming freshman class: “They’re working their tails off right now to put themselves in position to contribute this year.”

Traynor and Everson were the only two to play meaningful minutes that season.

Those young guns are no longer the young ones. They are the class that needs to step up and fill the legacy-sized shoes that their former leaders are leaving behind. They need to be those veterans, those experienced players for the new freshman class to learn from. Duke is in for a changing of the guard, and the success of that transition lies firmly on those middle two years. Their talent is undeniable, but for the Blue Devils to return to national prominence, they need to become the players that the women before them were.

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Seth Kessler | Staff Photographer

Graduate attacker Maddie Jenner runs with the ball during Duke’s game against North Carolina.

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GOLD STANDARD: Duke women capture ACC outdoor title by record margin

jumper Chinenye Agina did the same in the high jump at noon on Saturday.

By Sophie Levenson Sports Features Editor

It wasn’t even close.

Just like this year’s indoor conference finals, the Duke women’s squad headed into the last day of the ACC Outdoor Championship a number of points behind Virginia Tech. An hour later, it was ahead. Four hours later — and unlike last time — it had won the meet.

The Blue Devils took their last shot at a 2023 conference title on the Paul Derr Track and Field Facility Thursday through Saturday in neighboring Raleigh. The men’s side put on a valiant effort, but ultimately fell short, wrapping up the season in eighth place. The women’s team, on the other hand, did the most with its potential, setting a conference points record at 145.5 to take ACC gold a hefty 61 points ahead of the Hokies.

“We had multiple people in multiple events and they all just did an incredible job,” said head coach Shawn Wilbourn, who won the title in just his third season at the helm of the program.

Sophomore Megan McGinnis sought redemption for her infamous baton drop solo-style. In tune with her true team

mindset, the Patrick Henry product stepped out of Duke’s record-breaking 4x400m lineup to let Carly King, Lauren Tolbert, Madison Mulder and Julia Jackson take a shot at a gold medal and a national qualification. She settled for her own title in the 400m dash before wrapping up the evening by celebrating with her team, all of them decked in matching hats and t-shirts announcing their new title as champions.

When the shotgun sound signaled the

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The men’s team, for its part, was doing all it could to make up for a sub-par performance in the indoor season, boasting a first-place finish in the pole vault per a new personal best from graduate student Tyler Hrbek along with a pair of third-place marks from sophomore Maxwell Forte in the decathlon and senior Beau Allen in the high jump.

“I was very impressed with our men’s team. And you know, we don’t have the depth that we have on the women’s but the guys really competed hard,” said Wilbourn.

Duke’s success, in meets where important sprint races are saved for the end, has always been up to the last day’s events. For the men’s team, that meant a drop in rankings; for the women’s, there was the opposite effect.

start of day three, the Blue Devils had already collected a handful of podiumworthy finishes. Both sides of the team had tallied enough points to sit in third place from field events alone. Multi-event graduate student Isabel Wakefield placed third in the long jump; graduate students Dana Baker and Ilhame Tamrouti were second and third, respectively, in the javelin; junior Brianna Smith worked her way to third in the heptathlon and graduate

“We knew we had to get some points on Thursday … that kind of started the ball rolling,” Wilbourn said Saturday. “We just had to go in today and execute and be solid. And we knew we’d win.”

That being said, gold status was not assured right away. After rapid performances from the rest of the women’s 4x100m relay team, sophomore Chyler Turner fell behind in the fourth leg of the race, losing Duke a precious opportunity for points in an event

See TRACK AND FIELD on Page 14

at The Chronicle’s online guide to living near Duke.

Courtesy of Duke Athletics Sophomore Megan McGinnis won the 400m at the ACC Championships with a programrecord time.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published May 14, ahead of the NCAA Championships.

Duke exits NCAA tournament to Virginia in Super Regional after stellar season

always hurts to lose that last match, but I love this group and I’ve had an absolute blast coaching them. Our future is bright.”

In doubles, the 25th-ranked pairing of Johns and Rodenas struggled on court one, losing 6-3 to the talented duo of William Woodall and Inaki Montes. To make matters worse for the Blue Devils (22-7, 11-1 in the ACC), Ryan Goetz and Alexander Kiefe sealed the doubles point on court three for the Cavaliers (27-4, 12-0) with a 6-4 victory against Faris Khan and Niroop Vallabhaneni.

On court two, Andrew Zhang and Michael Heller’s match was stopped as the two were down 5-4 to Chris Rodesch and Jeffery von der Schulenburg.

in the first set, Johns failed to sustain any momentum against his junior opponent. The defeat is Johns’ second against Rodesch in three matches this season, with the other result being undecided.

As Johns fell in a tiebreak to Rodesch, thirdsingles Zhang fought against Schulenburg in a tiebreak of his own. Like Johns, however, Zhang fell in the first set, and the senior could not rebound in the second, falling 7-6, 7-5 to extend Virginia’s lead to 3-0.

In yet another tiebreak, this time on court six, Virginia’s Mans Dahlberg beat Khan. Snatching momentum from the struggling junior, Dahlberg would shut out Khan in the second set, winning the match 7-6, 6-0.

By Garrett Spooner Staff Writer

Going into the NCAA Super Regional, Virginia had played, and defeated, Duke on two other occasions this season, most recently 4-1 in the ACC tournament championship game. However, one of the most difficult things to do in sports is beat the same opponent three times, especially as the 12th-

BASEBALL

FROM PAGE 3

but not against N.C. State was freshman James Tallon, Duke’s shutdown closer who finished the regular season with a 0.85 ERA. Pollard said after the game that Tallon was not available because he needed rest from the weekend, but his absence was certainly felt.

Looking ahead to the NCAA tournament, in which Duke will need to play multiple highstakes games on consecutive days, the team cannot afford to lose because of extra-innings or the rain.

On the brightside, it has shown the ability to weather a storm. The Blue Devils survived, and thrived, in April when they had three straight ranked series with significant midweek games in between.

In the middle of this stretch came a threegame series against then-No. 13 Louisville. Duke won each game by one run, and two via a walkoff hit in the ninth inning. However, those games could easily have gone the other way if the lineup had not stepped up.

Tallon very nearly cost the Blue Devils when he gave up a game-tying, two-run home run in the eighth inning of game two. Thankfully, junior Alex Stone came through with a walkoff single to reclaim momentum of the series. A similar outcome came in game one, when two Louisville runs off Boucher gave the Cardinals a three-run lead in the ninth before sophomore Alex Mooney found a miracle in a walk-off grand slam.

So, as much as the responsibility lies on the pitching staff, mistakes are bound to happen. When they do, the lineup has to be capable of responding, just as it did against Louisville. However, in its four recent losses to Georgia Tech and Miami, Duke scored just one run total in the seventh inning or later. A game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth against N.C. State from graduate student MJ Metz seemed to give the needed spark, but the Blue Devils failed to produce a run in extra innings.

Interestingly, Duke’s strength is also its

seeded Blue Devils looked to keep their NCAA championship hopes alive against the No. 5 team in the country.

Taking down Duke 4-0 in the NCAA Super Regional, Virginia did just that. In a match full of surprises, including two location changes and staggering singles matches, Duke struggled to gain any sense of momentum against the Cavaliers. With the loss, Duke’s team season is over, with just the individual NCAA tournament left for Garrett Johns and Pedro Rodenas.

“I could not be more proud of our entire team and staff for everything we’ve accomplished together this year,” Duke head coach Ramsey Smith told Duke Athletics after the match. “It

weakness. Pollard’s pitching strategy has allowed the team to prosper despite its holes, but it has also tightened the window for success. Whether or not the Blue Devils advance past NCAA regionals or beyond will depend on the planning and execution of their wide array of arms, and the ability of the bats to respond when things go wrong.

SOFTBALL

FROM PAGE 5

After fouling off two of her own, she sent a grounder up the middle under the glove of Gress. Tapia rounded third, scoring easily, and Zampa advanced to second on the throw.

After yet another Jennings single, Davis bounced a grounder to Gress. Zampa ran on the contact and would’ve been out at home easily, if not for catcher Lexi Winters obstructing the plate due to kneeling in the baseline before receiving the ball. Vega’s groundout allowed Jennings to score for the final run of the day.

Duke takes on Stanford, who it bested 4-2 at the Mark Campbell Invitational in February, in a best-of-three series at Duke Softball Stadium in the Super Regional.

W. TENNIS

FROM PAGE 7

The summer nights aren’t over for all the Blue Devils, though, as Beck, Drummy and Emma Jackson will be competing in the NCAA Singles Championship starting May 22 in Orlando, Fla.

However, Duke’s team hopes drifted away Saturday night as UCLA dominated in the important moments.

“We gave ourselves opportunities, we just didn’t play well when we got those opportunities,” said Ashworth.

As the match moved to singles play, the imperfections of Virginia Tennis Facility at the Boar’s Head Resort were highlighted. After a lightning delay prior to doubles play, the matches moved indoors; however, courts four, five and six were ruled unplayable due to poor conditions. Thus, Connor Krug, Andrew Dale and Khan were left waiting. Midway through the first singles sets on courts one, two and three, all six matches moved back outside following around a hour-anda-half delay.

“It was unfortunate how things unfolded today with the circumstances regarding the playing conditions, but credit to Virginia,” Smith said. “They are a tough team, and they outplayed us today.”

On court one, No. 12 Johns fell to No. 9 Rodesch 7-6, 6-4. Although reaching a tiebreak

TRACK AND FIELD

FROM PAGE 13

it had hoped to dominate. The pressure was on for sophomore Amina Maatoug, who lined up for the 1500m just a few minutes later.

“Man ... right conditions, and she was feeling good. And in practice, she’s looked great ... so we knew that she would be able to do what she did,” said Wilbourn.

Luckily for the Blue Devil faithful, the Leiden, Netherlands, native kept her feet on pace and not only met expectations but broke them, surging out of a steady fourth place in the last 200m en route to a secondplace finish behind Virginia’s Margot Appleton. She snagged eight handy points and put Duke in first place for the first time all week.

Now things were moving. Wakefield and graduate student Emily Sloan snagged third and fourth place finishes in the 100m hurdles, respectively, warming up the track for the big 400m race about to kick off — and kick off it did, with McGinnis staying true to her No. 1 conference rank: In 51.43 seconds, the determination on her face broke into a grin as the Roanoke, Va., native broke not just her own personal record but also the alltime program mark, too.

“I think we’re ready to do something big today,” McGinnis told ACC Network after her win.

With a 22-point lead, the Blue Devil women stepped up to their blocks for the 100m dash. Senior Halle Bieber and sophomore Abby Geiser took over lanes four and six, matching bright pink sneakers crossing the finish line just a hundredth of a second apart from one another. Geiser snagged second in 11.34, Bieber took third at 11.35 and both times were good for personal bests.

One hour later, the same duo was made a triad by McGinnis as the three Blue Devils lined up for the women’s 200m, filling the start line with dark blue. They finished

As Khan’s last shot went deep, Dahlberg’s teammates stopped their matches with fists in the air to celebrate advancing to the NCAA quarterfinals. Roedenas, Krug and Dale’s matches on courts two, four and five, respectively, went unfinished against their opponents from Charlottesville, Va.

Duke’s impressive season reached its conclusion Saturday evening; however, the team has a lot to look ahead to in the coming years. Practically, Duke’s key contributors may all return to Ambler Tennis Stadium next year — seniors Johns and Zhang both have eligibility left within the Duke program, if they choose to use it.

With a final record of 22-7, including an ACC tournament championship berth, this Blue Devil squad will hold their heads high moving into next year.

second, third and fourth: McGinnis, Bieber and Geiser. The three of them walked off the track together, smiling, tired and all with new personal bests. And to put a cherry on top of the whole shebang, McGinnis and Bieber slid their times into the second- and third-best slots in Duke history.

“It was redemption in a way, I guess,” said Wilbourn, referring to McGinnis’ performance Saturday and its contrast with the result of the indoor championship meet.

“But, you know, we didn’t talk a lot about it. The team rallied behind her and it did focus her and she was on a mission; and she came in and she executed and looked great. Really excited to see her as we move on towards NCAAs now.”

The end of this meet was not, exactly, the fairy-tale finish fans had hoped it would be. Duke did not win the 4x400m race: Miami took it again, just like the indoor conference meet, and the Blue Devils fell to second place even with a valiant anchoring sprint from Jackson.

But the truth of the story is really much prettier than a fairy tale. Rather than scraping by to a last-minute victory, Duke performed at its best all across the board, three days in a row. Maybe its loss back in February fueled the narrative; maybe it is just that good. Either way, the Blue Devils were that good together — vigilantly fighting the idea that track is an individual sport.

“It just solidifies that culture that we’re trying to foster — the philosophy of being a full team and being competitive in every event — spreading our talent out and not emphasizing one event area over another. It’s paying off,” Wilbourn said.

This season is not over. Pending official qualifications, a slew of Duke athletes will look to ride the wave of their successes to Jacksonville, Fla., on May 24 for the NCAA East Regional.

Courtesy of Duke Athletics

Freshman Pedro Rodenas’ match was left unifinished as Duke lost to Virginia.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published May 14 before the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships began.