{"id":177,"date":"2007-05-10T15:19:20","date_gmt":"2007-05-10T20:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/10\/duke-lacrosse-finishes-the-regular-seasonand-a-renaissance-in-chapel-hill\/"},"modified":"2011-12-09T12:47:20","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T16:47:20","slug":"duke-lacrosse-finishes-the-regular-seasonand-a-renaissance-in-chapel-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/10\/duke-lacrosse-finishes-the-regular-seasonand-a-renaissance-in-chapel-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke Lacrosse finishes the regular season…and a renaissance in Chapel Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DukePhoto Gallery: Duke Lacrosse v Air Force<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Duke played a late regular season game against the Air Force Falcons on Sunday, easily winning 19-6 in a game that left the Duke defense twiddling their thumbs while the offense scored mercilessly. <\/span>In the second half, Duke cleared the bench; gone were the familiar jerseys of Danowski, Greer, Carrol and McFadyen and in were players that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know played for Duke. <\/span>As I edited the photos from the game, I had to keep reaching for the roster as I asked myself \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who the heck is this?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d over and over. <\/span>Photographically speaking, it was snoozer of a game. <\/span>The Falcons were too overmatched to create exciting photos. <\/span>Knowing what a boring blowout the game would be, Inside Lacrosse<\/em> didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even bother hiring me for the game. <\/span>Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say I blame them at all. Fans of Zach Greer however could have created a highlight reel from just this game as he alone scored five. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

While Duke still has lots of lacrosse to play, presumably right up until Memorial Day (that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when the NCAA Championship is for all you non-lacrosse heads), Sunday ended the regular season. <\/span>Even without NCAA post-season having started, Duke has now played twice as many games as they played all last year after a Duke President, with an itchy finger on the button, dumped the entire team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s season. <\/span>All that mess aside, the success of Duke this year is nothing short of amazing; and this coming from a Tar Heel born and bred, hate Dook fan. <\/span>Duke had the handicap of a shortened season last year, leaving the team with vastly less practice time. <\/span>Throw a wrench in the cog of having a new coach and the national media scrutiny bearing down on the guys, this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t suppose to be a #1 ranked team. <\/span>But at 14-2, that is how Duke is ranked in the upcoming NCAA tournament. <\/span>Nearly everyone who knows the difference between a long and short lacrosse stick projects them to make the Final Four<\/a>; and most project the NCAA Championship Trophy to be on a team bus heading to Durham<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> after Memorial Day weekend. <\/span>Whether this happens or not, the success of the team can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be discounted; it is down right remarkable. <\/span><\/o:p><\/p>\n

Speaking of success, that of my alma mater in Chapel Hill<\/st1:place> has been nothing short of stunning. <\/span>After loosing Ryan Blair, Andrew and Stephen McElduff among others, I expected 2007 to be another rough season for the Heels. <\/span>But it started with a 11-8 win over Notre Dame; a game was written off as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lock\u00e2\u20ac\u009d win for Notre Dame by some. <\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a culture of winning that finally began to permeate the team. <\/span>Last year we just seemed resigned to loosing. <\/span>This year, we have fought for every point, every second. <\/span>We even gave the titans of Duke and UVA a run for their money. <\/span>Wins over UNC are now considered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153quality wins\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead of the easy kind. <\/span>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice to finally be a boost to an opposing team’s SOS. <\/span><\/o:p>One of the greatest moments for Tar Heel lacrosse was when we shocked the Hop (Johns Hopkins) 13-10<\/a>. <\/span>It was by far one of the most thrilling moment in my life as a professional sports photographer and Tar Heel fan. <\/span>That game was held at Kenan Stadium where two years ago the football team shocked then #2 Miami<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. <\/span>The upset over Hopkins<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> was no less important to the school. <\/span>It legitimized the team and showed that we can and would <\/em>compete at the national level. <\/span>This year was great, but man I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait until next year. <\/span> <\/o:p>If you live in the Triangle, this weekend will hold some great NCAA action. <\/span>In what could be a blowout, Duke will take on Providence<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> at noon on Saturday at Duke. <\/span>Later at 5pm UNC will take on Navy at Fetzer Field. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo Gallery: Duke Lacrosse v Air Force. Duke played a late regular season game against the Air Force Falcons on Sunday, easily winning 19-6 in a game that left the Duke defense twiddling their thumbs while the offense scored mercilessly. In the second half, Duke cleared the bench; gone were …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,16,2],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1050,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}