Destiny still in the hands of m. lax as it takes on Blue Devils at home

The drive from Durham, NC to Old Nassau is about 430 miles. That gives the Duke men's lacrosse team a seven-hour bus-ride to think about how it is going to beat Princeton this evening at 1952 Stadium.

So what will the team dream about first when the light goes off and the seats go back?

It might first ponder the category in which, compared to Princeton, it is the strongest. With its rotation of Kevin Cassese and Jamie Kennedy, the Blue Devils have one of the toughest faceoff teams in the country.

Against Georgetown on Mar. 24 for instance, Duke won 16 of 19 faceoffs against the No. 5 Hoyas. On the season, the two middies have won 65 percent of the restarts.

"Cassese is a talented kid who's real competitive so we'll have our hands full," head coach Bill Tierney said.

The Princeton faceoff duo of sophomore Drew Casino and junior Anthony Perna, on the other hand, have been a little erratic. The two have won more faceoffs than they have lost — 54 percent on the season — but have, at times, done considerably worse.

This evening, Casino and Perna will start out by trying to cleanly win the ball off the faceoff. If Cassese gets more than his fair share of clean wins, the Tiger middies might then try to just bat the ball away and force the wings to fight over it, thus neutralizing Cassese's abilities.

"I think that our main goal is just going to be establishing good wing play," Perna said. "I think that's going to be a key to the game. We're going to have to get our middie and long-pole on the wings to get in there. If [Casino and I] can't win it out, we're going to have to work hard to scramble to get the ball."

Certainly, the Blue Devils will not be dreaming about winning faceoffs for more than an hour or two. The team will need to focus more on how to score some goals. The Blue Devils are a large, physical team, and the attack is no exception.

"I know they have a lot of big strong guys that try to run through people," senior defenseman Scott Farrell said. "It's going to be more physical this week than what it's been in the past. I think that will work pretty well in our favor. If they become pretty physical, I think we can play that way. If it becomes a slugfest, then so be it."

Duke's offensive quarterback is Alex Lieske. He is the Blue Devil equivalent of Princeton's sophomore Ryan Boyle in that he is the one who will likely control the ball most often and will always be looking for the open man. Thus far in the season, Lieske has 10 goals and nine assists, leading the team with 19 points.

"Damien [Davis] will probably cover Lieske, because he's our best cover guy," senior defenseman Scott Farrell said. "So he'll cover their player with the ball the most often."

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When Lieske has the ball, he most often looks for Kevin Brennan and Cassese, who have combined for another 20 goals on the season.

The Blue Devils will not be able to keep the ball from the Tigers forever; thus, they need to start dreaming about how to control the Princeton attack that has woken up since its 8-5 loss against Johns Hopkins.

Since scoring just five goals against the Blue Jays Mar. 2, the Tigers have played six games and have averaged 13 goals per game. Against the Penn Quakers on Tuesday, the Princeton attack trio of senior BJ Prager, junior Sean Hartofilis, and Boyle combined for an all-americanish 10 goals and four assists.

On the drive up, though, Duke will probably decide to counter this threesome with a somewhat different defensive style than what Princeton has seen all season. This style, which has effectively limited opponents to 7.34 goals per game, is a consistent man-to-man setup that relies on strength and athleticism to take advantage of one-on-one situations.

"They've always done a great job with their defense," Tierney said. "They play a style that's very different from the rest, and that's a man-to-man defense. They'll slide, they'll help, but not as much or as often as other teams. They think they're strong enough, big enough and athletic enough to stop teams that way. If they are, then we're in for a long day."

By the time Duke is done thinking about the Tiger offense, they will have arrived in central New Jersey.

Something only Princeton will be thinking about between now and game time will be the control it has recently gained over its destiny. Since Yale lost to Brown on Wednesday, the Tigers will receive the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament if they win out. Such would not have been the case beforehand. This will hopefully envigorate a team that will have played three games in a week.

"We're a little tired, but I think the emotion of the game against Duke will be back up," Tierney said. "I hope the emotions are back up after Yale lost to Brown. If they don't realize their season now, they never will."