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April 21, 2002

DURHAM, N.C. – Terrence Keaney scored the game-winning goal with 39seconds remaining and Tournament MVP A.J. Kincel made 15 saves assecond-seeded and 12th-ranked Duke captured the 2002 ACC Men’s LacrosseTournament championship with a 14-13 win over top-seeded and numberone-ranked Virginia in front of 4,106 fans at Koskinen Stadium inDurham, N.C.

The Blue Devils improve to 7-5 while the Cavaliers fall to 9-2. The ACCtitle for the Blue Devils is their second straight and third overall.Duke head coach Mike Pressler earns his third ACC Tournament crown,moving into a tie with Virginia coach Dom Starsia for the second-mostleague tournament championships. Dave Klarmann, who serves as avolunteer assistant coach for the Blue Devils, won five ACC Tournamenttitles.

Trailing 13-12 late in the fourth period, Keaney scored on an assistfrom Kevin Cassese to tie the game with 2:02 remaining. After Cassesewon the ensuing face-off, the Blue Devils held possession until Keaneybroke free from behind the goal and beat Virginia goalkeeper TillmanJohnson. Duke then won the face-off and maintained possession untilturning the ball over with two seconds left. Virginia’s desparationlength-of-the-field shot was corralled by Kincel wide of the goal.

Virginia bolted out to a 4-1 lead in the opening seven minutes as BillyGlading tallied two goals. Back-to-back goals by Dan Doty and JimmyRegan just 48 seconds apart pulled Duke within 4-3, and then the twosquads traded goals in the final 40 seconds of the period including ashort-handed tally by Duke’s Taylor Wray with 15 seconds left to makethe score 5-4 after one quarter.

After John Christmas found the back of the net for a two-goal Cavalierlead, Duke used a 3-1 spurt with Regan scoring twice to knot the game at7-7 with less than a minute remaining in the half. Virginia respondedas Joe Yevoli scored with just 17 seconds left to give the Cavaliers aone-goal halftime advantage.

Following a goal by Duke’s Dan Chemotti that tied the game, Virginiareceived consecutive goals from Yevoli and Brenndan Mohler to push theCavaliers ahead by two goals. The Blue Devils then put together a 4-0run to claim a 12-10 lead at the 11:52 mark of the final period onRegan’s fourth and final goal of the day. The Cavaliers then scoredthree straight goals as Christmas sandwiched goals around a tally byA.J. Shannon to put Virginia ahead, 13-12, with just under five minutesremaining.

Alex Lieske paced the Duke offense with three goals and three assistswhile Regan added a career-high five points on four goals and oneassist. For Virginia, Chrismas logged three goals and one assist. TheCavaliers played the final 55:09 without All-America defender MarkKoontz, who left the game after reinjuring his knee less than fiveminutes into the contest.

ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
*A.J. Kincel (Duke), Terrence Keaney (Duke), Dan Hauber (Duke), JimmyRegan (Duke), Alex Lieske (Duke), John Christmas (Virginia), TillmanJohnson (Virginia), A.J. Shannon (Virginia), Joe Yevoli (Virginia), PaulSpellman (North Carolina), Brian Carroll (Maryland)*Most Valuable Player

Post Game Quotes

Virginia head coach Dom Starsia
“First and foremost, I’d like to give credit to Duke. They made playswhen they had to. We seemed to struggle to make plays throughout theday. I thought we were tentative almost from the beginning to the end.The goal they got to put them ahead at the end of the game was kind ofindicative of where we were defensively. We just seemed a little out ofsync, a little afraid to make a play at the end of the game. Our timingwas just bad. It was a little uncharacteristic. I thought throughout thegame that we were just going to snap out of it and start to play withmore poise and patience, but we never really did. We were just a stepout of sync the whole day.”

On losing defender Mark Koontz to injury in the first quarter”It was a little unsettling to see it happen and I think it did affectthe defense, but it’s not a suitable excuse for some of the things weallowed them to get defensively. The three guys that are back there areall quite capable and experienced enough. There were just a number ofcases where I thought we should have defended better and played better.Losing Mark was a blow, but it shouldn’t have been anything that changedthe whole scope of the game for us.”

Virginia senior Conor Gill
“Obviously I’m disappointed in the outcome, but we deserved it. Weplayed pretty terribly, and Duke played well. It’s nothing to get downabout. We’ll come back tomorrow and get ready to play Penn State nextweek. I could almost see it coming in the past couple of weeks where wehaven’t been as sharp on the field, and kind of got away with it. Buttoday it came back and bit us. This turned out to be a good thing forour team I think.”

Virginia junior A.J. Shannon
“Duke’s defense just tightened up a little more. They were making somenice plays, but (Duke goalkeeper) A.J. Kincel had some big saves in thegame. Duke’s defense tightened up when it had to and shut us down.”

Duke head coach Mike Pressler
“We’ve had some big wins around here in my 12 years at Duke. Winning anACC tournament title, especially repeating and doing it on your homefield, is incredible. I can’t remember a bigger win than this one. Isaid to the team one of the days this week, ‘To win this thing, we’llhave to give out 10 game balls,’ and actually we’re going to give out11. We’re going to give out [a game ball] to every senior. Eleven ofour 14 goals came from the senior class. They scored three in a row andthen we showed resiliency to make the play in the fourth quarter.Terrence [Keaney] makes a spectacular play and goes underneath. Nobodyslides to him and he finishes in front of the goal. That’s what we weretalking about all week. You finish in front, good things will happen toyou. What that does is put us right back in the national picture andthe NCAA tournament hunt and we’re right where we wanted to be back inMarch.”

“We didn’t play very well Friday night, but we had spectacular game byone player and that was the difference. This is nothing our guys didn’tknow. We’ve played with heart and emotion all year, but we haven’tplayed with our heads. We had to bring our heads with our hearts. I’vehad no issue with our guys all year, playing hard and tough. This isone of the best bunches I’ve had that way, but what has let us down insome of our losses are some of our mistakes late in the game when thegame is ready to be decided. Today, the difference was we were in thesame situation again but we made some really smart plays, some defensivestops, and took some good shots. We were patient at the offensive endwhen it was 13-12 and Terrence ties it. We didn’t go for the firstshot. We went for the best shot.”

Duke senior A.J. Kincel
“We had an opportunity to see what our team’s made out of. Coming intothis week we knew that we were in a tough spot, but with our coaching,our seniors, our captains, and our leadership we knew how to turn itaround and pull it all together. All year we’ve shined at times andwe’ve been great and we knew that if we kept working hard we’d be ableto put it together this weekend and we did.”

“I think our whole team rallies around each other so it’s never oneperson. You never feel like you’re out there on an island because we’resuch a close team. We would do anything for each other. Fortunately,we get that opportunity on the field.”

Score By Quarters

Duke	  4  3  4  3  -  14Virginia   5  3  2  3  -  13

Shots
Duke: 39
Virginia: 36

Saves
Duke: 15
Virginia: 12

Ground Balls
Duke 48
Virginia: 38

Face-Offs
Duke: 18-29
Virginia: 11-29

Clears
Duke: 19-28
Virginia: 29-32

EMO
Duke: 1-2
Virginia: 1-3

SCORING (Goals-Assists)
Duke: Alex Lieske 3-3, Jimmy Regan 4-1, Dan Chemotti 2-0, TerrenceKeaney 2-0, Kevin Cassese 1-1, Kevin Brennan 0-2, Dan Doty 1-0, TaylorWray 1-0, Ben Fenton 0-1
Virginia: John Christmas 3-1, A.J. Shannon 2-1, Joe Yevoli 2-1, BillyGlading 2-0, Chris Rotelli 1-1, Eric Leibowitz 1-0, Brenndan Mohler 1-0,Trey Whitty 1-0, Conor Gill 0-1, Nick Russo 0-1

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