Welcome To Championship Monday. Here Is Your 2018 NCAA Lacrosse National Championship Preview Blog
Who: #4 Duke Blue Devils vs #3 Yale Bulldogs
What: The 2018 NCAA Men’s DI National Championship Game
When: 1pm Eastern Standard Time
Where: Gillette Stadium, home of the Super Bowl LII losing New England Patriots
Why: ’cause Stone Cold said so. Also because it’s Memorial Day and everybody knows that Memorial Day Monday is for Natty ‘Ships.
How: Well both of these teams absolutely dominated their semifinal opponent on Saturday. Yale beat the brakes off of Albany 20-11 after a 9-point day from Ben Reeves, a 6-goal day from Matt Gaudet, and a savage performance by their defense who were being bullies all day long. Duke got off to a 6-0 start against Maryland. They let the reigning champs climb back into the game and eventually make it 8-7, but I think that was just Duke’s way of making the loss sting even more for the Terps by letting them think they actually had a chance in that one. After Maryland cut the lead to just 1, the Blue Devils pulled away again and won that game 13-8 with relative ease.
So now both Duke and Yale come into this game after a couple of dominant performances. I don’t think that you could choose two teams to play in this game today who are more similar than Duke and Yale are. Both teams have an offense that can snap off at any given moment. Both of these offenses are deep with weapons all over the place. And both of these offenses are led by Tewaaraton Finalists with Ben Reeves at Yale and Justin Guterding at Duke. They’re the only two players in the nation who had over 100 points this season. Reeves has 111 so far on 61 goals and 50 assists. Guterding has 110 with 64 goals and 46 assists. Both of these guys led their team in points on Saturday and both of them will be playing in their last college lacrosse game today. That matchup right there is essentially a wash.
Then you look at the complimentary pieces to these offenses. For Yale, like I just mentioned before, you have Matt Gaudet who put up 6 against Albany on Saturday. He has 37 goals on the season. Jackson Morrill rounds out that attack unit and he has 40 on the year. Jack Tigh has 30+ on the year and then Yale has a handful of guys who all have double digit goals this year. When you have a player like Ben Reeves who is so smart and so good at working to get other guys open and always gets them the ball, having guys like Morrill and Gaudet and Tigh are key because they’re going to finish more opportunities than not.
On the other side, Duke has a bunch of studs to work off of Guterding as well. Freshman Joe Robertson has 46 goals on the year. Brad Smith has 63 points this season. Sean Lowrie is playing in front of his hometown crowd here in Foxboro and freshman Nakeie Montgomery has had 8 goals in his last 3 NCAA Tournament games.
I’d maybe give a slight advantage to Yale’s secondary players over Duke’s but for all intents and purposes, I’d call that one a wash as well.
So then you look to the defensive side of the field. I mentioned before that Yale’s defense was bullying Albany all day on Saturday. Here is freshman Chris Fake with a prime example.
This is a group of dudes who look like they decided to dorm in the weight room. They’re big, they’re strong, they’re aggressive, they’re just a bunch of bullies plain and simple. But then at the other end of the field, you’ve got a defensive group led by sophomore JT Giles-Harris who just so happened to have a shit ton of offers to play division 1 football. And he just so happened to be the guest on this week’s episode of The Crease Dive so make sure you check that out right here.
Then you get to the cage. Yale is starting a true freshman in net, Jack Starr. He’s had his ups and downs so far this year but he was definitely seeing the ball on Saturday against Albany. Duke has a redshirt senior in between the pipes, Danny Fowler. He’s had double-digit saves in each of his last two games and only allowed single-digit goals. I’d give Fowler the edge in net here over Starr but considering both of these offenses are so damn good, I have a feeling that each goalies is going to be doing a lot of turning and raking today.
But yeah. These are two teams who are pretty much staring each other in the mirror. The only real difference between the two teams is that Duke will be looking for their 4th national championship in the past 10 years while Yale is trying to win their first ever. And it’s been a pretty good weekend so far for first time Natty champs. Yesterday we had Wesleyan win their first ever DIII National Championship over Salisbury. Merrimack won their first ever DII National Championship over Saint Leo. For the ladies, James Madison won their first ever DI National Championship over Boston College. So in that aspect, maybe it’s a good sign for Yale? Or you can look at it the other way and say there are only so many teams who can win their first ever championship in one weekend and that Wesleyan, Merrimack and JMU already took up all those spots.
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Either way. We’re in for a helluva day. It is the final day of the 2018 NCAA Lacrosse season. Regardless of who wins, I’d just like to thank everybody who has been reading and listening and following along all season. I realize that lacrosse is still a niche sport. I realize there are still a ton of people out there who shit on the sport just to shit on it. But being able to enjoy this ride with all of you out there who actually do love the sport, it’s been great. So we’ve got 60 minutes left on the year. Let’s have ourselves a day.
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