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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIPSMay 26, 2014John DanowskiKyle KeenanHenry LobbJordan WolfBALTIMORE, MARYLAND Duke – 11 JOHN DANOWSKI: First we want to congratulate University of Notre Dame, fantastic season, ACC Tournament champions, which is something that we couldn't do. Just had a tremendous playoff run, and we knew at halftime at 5‑1 that they were going to keep battling and playing, and they throw their bodies around, they play hard. They're so well coached and it's really a privilege to play against the University of Notre Dame. Q. Jordan, describe your two goals and four assists and playing in your game today. How did you feel throughout today and the season? JORDAN WOLF: I felt great. It's just a testament to our players. Our offense didn't have our best day today, but we kept working and trying to get our shots clicking. I just happened to be in some right spots and got some easy ones in transition, but like I said, a testament to our offense and our coaches, for sure. Q. What about the last shot? JORDAN WOLF: I missed the one two minutes before so had to take up for it on that one. They doubled, the goalie was out, and I just ran past it and dunked it. Like I said, all credit to my teammates and coaches for sure. Q. Henry, how much of your defense on somebody like Kavanagh is really based on not letting his other players even see him? HENRY LOBB: I mean, obviously Matt is a great player, so obviously going into the game he was a big part of our game plan. That was the game plan, make it hard for him to get the ball, crowd him and kind of pressure him. So I think that's what we did. Q. Jordan, there were a couple of time‑outs there late when it was down to one goal. What was the vibe in the huddle there?  What were you talking about to try to turn it around at the top of the rally? JORDAN WOLF: Notre Dame is a great team. We knew they were going to make a run. We just needed a couple plays to get them off their rhythm a little bit, and nothing really in the huddles. I mean, Christian Walsh was unbelievable, being a senior, he's just making sure everybody was calm, just making sure we had good fundamentals going into those big possessions and that was really it. We just wanted to make a couple more plays at the end. That's what we did. Coach Caputo, Matt and I give Christian a lot of credit for calming us down, making sure, deep breaths, we're playing every possession just like always. Q. Kyle, on the goal that they got it down to one and then you cut to the middle and took a pass and scored, was that a set play or was that just something that evolved out of the offense? KYLE KEENAN: It was part of our offensive set. I was supposed to post on the crease there and Jordan pressed that side, gave me a great feed. I didn't even think I was open, but he just put it right on my stick. I was just in the right place at the right time. Q. Henry and Kyle, the Tewaarton will be announced on Thursday? Do you want to stump for your boy a little bit? KYLE KEENAN: I think he is the best attack man in the nation. I'm honored and humbled to play with him every day, just the things he does in practice and he's just one of the hardest workers and just so determined and focused that like just all the other things that the outside doesn't see. But he's really just as a friend and just as a leader helped me develop my game and calms the whole offense down, and he's definitely one of our team leaders as well as just an incredible player. HENRY LOBB: I would just back him up, just everything he said. I've known Wolf since I've been nine years old, and just playing against him, watching his work ethic, watching everything he does, what he stands for, in my mind he's the best player. Q. Henry, just to kind of follow up, how much of their offensive troubles, especially in the first half there, was what you guys were doing and was it just them making mistakes? How did your game plan affect what they were doing? HENRY LOBB: I think as a whole in that first half, just the whole unit played great. Casey Carroll, Chris Hipps, Luke Duprey being out there, Charlie, our short‑stick D‑middies, just kind of playing behind me. I wasn't honestly on the ball much and wasn't really involved much. Kind of all the credit has to go to them there. They played great, got the ball off the ground, and all those guys were fantastic. Q. Jordan, as you kind of reflect on how your career has unfolded and just the growth as a player and whatnot, how much do you appreciate getting back‑to‑back championships on your way out the door? JORDAN WOLF: Yeah, this one is a little more sad just because it's my last game at Duke. I love this university, I love my teammates, my coaches. I couldn't ask for four better ones. They've helped me tremendously on the field, and more importantly off the field, being a man and growing up. I came in a boy, and I think that through Coach Danowski especially, he's really taught me all the values I need for life. I'm just so fortunate to be at a place like this, and it just sucks that I have to leave. But it's a good way to walk off. Q. Henry, what was Notre Dame able to do when they started to chip away and build that run towards the end of the game? HENRY LOBB: Well, they just got on a run. Coach D, every game, always lets us know that the other team can go on a run. We just have to find a way to manage it. They got a ball off the ground, lose it, kind of got some scrappy goals that they love to do and that kind of gave them some energy, but we kind of just sat back in and kind of gathered ourselves and yeah, just kind of waited out the long run. Q. Henry, could you talk about Coach DeLuca, his addition to the team this year? HENRY LOBB: Yeah, I mean, Coach DeLuca is awesome. He kind of really, really is a special guy, a special coach, and he really helped us out on defense this year, kind of over‑‑ I didn't play the first six games. He was always there in my ear kind of giving me confidence and kind of waiting for me to get back, and that was great to hear. And just overall I think everyone on our team really welcomed him into the family and now he's part of the family, and it's great to see him that excited. He's a great guy, great coach. Q. Kyle, you've played the last two games for Josh Dionne because he got hurt obviously. Was there really any adjustment period for you? I know you were playing a lot second midfield, but you come down and play mostly attack. You're working with Wolf and Matheis down there. What were you trying to do the last two games to help out the offense? KYLE KEENAN: Well, there definitely was a transition period. I got thrown in there right away, the Johns Hopkins game, and it was kind of a culture shock because I hadn't played there in a while. But I played there my whole life so I was pretty confident and kind of knew what to do. The one thing that Josh and Jordan and even Case, they just worked with me on just like the nit‑picky, just being in the right‑‑ being in the right place at the right time, spacing, timing, just a few plays that I wasn't in on that I had to replace Josh on. But I wasn't really trying to replace Josh because me and Josh have different games, I was just trying to stick to my own game, and Josh was always being a little coach on the side there, just giving me confidence, little tips every time I came off the field, and Jordan and Case just gave me so much confidence, as well just all throughout the week and just preparing for these two games. Q. I know you're a modest man, but two straight titles, three out of five, eight straight Final Four appearances. If it's not a dynasty, what's your word for it? JOHN DANOWSKI: You know, it's Duke. We have this opportunity, we have a tremendous support staff, you know, strength staff, sports performance staff, sports psychologist. We have a sports psychologist who sat down with Luke Aaron last night and just chatted with him for about a half hour. We have so many people who are a part, who their job is just to help individual students reach their potential. You're just part of this big‑‑ you're part of this big educational kind of‑‑ you're just trying to fit in. And the kids who come here, you know, it's hard. It's hard academically, it's hard‑‑ we push them from day one, but they accept that and they want to be part of something that's greater than themselves. At the end, I think you saw today that they're humble. Jordan Wolf is a 3.4 student, and he's got a job already in Manhattan. He is the hardest‑working kid in the weight room. He is pound for pound, our strength coach pretests and post tests. He is number one or our team. He never missed a practice in four years. That's what you get with these kids. I don't know, I think it's just a mix of tremendous character young men and a place that provides them an opportunity to grow. Q. They pretty clearly were hoping to wear down your midfield, Deemer and Myles in particular. How do you think you with stood that and was that a concern as the second half rolled along for you guys? JOHN DANOWSKI: Absolutely. We saw that in the Maryland game, and again, I thought they‑‑ Notre Dame was brilliantly coached. They had a plan, they played tremendous defense, and our guys got a little impatient in the first half, maybe reading the press clippings a little bit. It's hard, and maybe playing to the crowd a little bit. I mean, we were trying to score and people thought we were stalling, and we don't play that way. Against Notre Dame there wasn't a lot of opportunities. It's two games in three days, and it's hot, and so I thought we got caught a bunch of times in that first half. It didn't really hurt us, but they did a great job, not so much in the second half, but in the first half. Very sound plan for sure. Q. I've got to ask you, when Notre Dame's shots started to fall a little bit there, did you think about going to Kyle Turri? JOHN DANOWSKI: Great question, and the answer is no, not today. Not today. He made a couple saves up high that he caught and some of the things we haven't seen. I said to the team, I make no promises to the team, or rarely do I make any promises. I said to the team, I promise you that Luke is going to play well today, and I thought‑‑ it's one of those coach's things you say to everybody. But the message was he's going to be fine, and you guys just relax in front of him, and we trust him. Q. Lacrosse is often a game of streaks, and when that streak comes on by the team that's down, a lot of times the team that's in front is overwhelmed. It did look today like you kept your calm despite the fact they were coming back toward you. Could you talk a little bit about the calm your team kept? JOHN DANOWSKI: Yeah, I think we've been in this situation many times this year. We squandered a 14‑10 lead against Syracuse in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, so we learned a great lesson there hopefully. You've just got to keep playing, and somebody has got to make a play sometimes. Somebody has got to run past somebody or somebody is going to make a save or defend someone or pick up a ground ball. Give Notre Dame a lot of credit. They got a couple of scrappy ground balls, when Kavanagh's second goal that was off the ground, where he kind of dodged across the front of the cage, but I thought in the box defensively the guys still felt confident. Perkovic had a career day and he was terrific. I thought that we felt good about ourselves defensively in the box, and certainly there was no reason for us not to feel good offensively. I thought Jordan Wolf's next‑to‑last goal, the one where he re‑dodged and put his foot in the ground and finished in front of the goal was a big one for us. I think that maybe pushed it to three at that point. But sometimes a guy has got to make a play, and what we didn't want was guys not to want to‑‑ got to play to win. You've got to play to win, and if you lose, you lose. Q. Heading into the game, can you talk about maybe what were some of your bigger concerns with game planning for the Notre Dame offense and then specifically today the game that Sergio Perkovic was able to have? JOHN DANOWSKI: Well, I think one of the things, when you beat a team early in the year, you look at that a little bit, but you know it's not going to be the same. But we tried to limit Kavanagh's touches. We tried to force him underneath. They scored right after that time out where they kind of set not a moving pick, but it was a really slick play, and we didn't really‑‑ Will Haus didn't realize how close he was to the cage, and he stuck that one. And so then we played defense what was called midnight that we wanted to have a body on the near pipe so that he wouldn't see in the daylight. If we forced him underneath, he wouldn't see and he wouldn't dodge. So that was the plan or him, and Perkovic stuck one lefty, came down the alley. That was a great shot. Nobody was saving that one, and he scored an extra man, and he scored in a bunch of different ways. Again, in these games sometimes guys just step up, and for him today, we were aware of him, we were aware how good of a shooter he is, and he had a great day. Q. About Luke's playing goal, what did you see what was going better for him today? JOHN DANOWSKI: He just seemed to be a little bit more relaxed. We were certainly ready to pull the trigger if we needed to with Kyle and felt very comfortable with Kyle. Since Kyle has been in this game before, so that wouldn't have been a big deal. But you know, this is what we've been doing all year. Luke was the starter and he earned that right to be the starter, and so we were going to stay with him as long as it felt right. He made a bunch of saves and was cornering the ball well, and clearing was a concern of ours today. We thought Notre Dame was going to ride and they hustled and swing sticks and do a great job, and I thought our guys handled that really well, except at the end. Q. What about the match‑up Lobb on Kavanagh, big man on little man. Was size the reason you did it or were there other reasons why? JOHN DANOWSKI: Yeah, for us he had covered him in South Bend the first weekend in April, so he had experience, and I believe that he didn't score. I think Matt was in a bit of a slump in that middle part of the season. He went to two or three games where he struggled a little bit and we might have got him on the tail end or the beginning of it, and so Henry had experience playing him. But Henry has covered Joey Sankey or Cockerton from Virginia and he's covered those lefties and he's covered those lefties well, and he's a senior and he's your guy. If you have to, we were ready to put Chris Hipps on him or do whatever we needed to do, but we felt really comfortable with Chris on Doyle. Q. After Notre Dame trimmed it down to 10‑9 in the swing face‑off Kevin Corrigan thought Brendan moved early. Wanted to get your thoughts on that. And with three titles in five years, do you feel Duke needs to be mentioned with the upper‑echelon schools in the sport? JOHN DANOWSKI: On the former, no comment. On the latter, that's for people to talk about. That's not for me. I've got to find out what I'm going to do next week. The hardest part about coaching is the really neat thing these last three weeks, we eat dinner together every night as a team. We go to the movies once a week. I've watched‑‑ we watched Godzilla last week. I would never go see Godzilla on my own, but you do these things and it's fun and the kids are smiling and laughing, and then all of a sudden they're gone because school is over and they're going off and moving on with their lives, and I've got to find something to do. So that's what coaching is about and teaching, and I'm going to miss them dearly, and then by the time I get over that, August rolls around and there will be another group of freshmen. We just coach to stay in the moment and to be with these kids and see what we can do and what you can accomplish. That other stuff is I guess when you retire and you look back and say, yeah, it was pretty cool. But for now, it's just staying in the moment. Q. Could you also talk about Ben DeLuca, his addition to the staff, and your feelings for him given that this is a pretty unique experience for somebody to come on board like this and win a National Championship and maybe just a little bit about what you brought to the team to change what happened on the field, if anything? JOHN DANOWSKI: Sure. Well, I think the thing that there's a brotherhood amongst thieves I guess you would say, and you've got to take care of each other and the coaching fraternity. I knew Ben to be a good man, a good family man and a good person and a great coach. Joe Cinosky for us left in January to take the job at Mount St.Mary's to get a full‑time job, so we had this job where you don't pay any money and you work a lot of hours, and Ben was willing to do that, and not a lot of men would do that in his situation. But he jumped at the opportunity. He got in the car and he was here like two days after our first phone call. And so for us, him and I, we had a blast together. We spent a lot of time. He's a really good person. As Henry said, that was most important. The coaching thing, the teaching thing, we'd figure it out together. He's got to figure out what we've already put in because I think he showed up maybe the first week‑‑ Jacksonville week. It was like Tuesday maybe of game week, so he had missed all preseason. But obviously he's a coach and he picked things up really quickly, and we turned over man down to him in the first couple of weeks, and then we just worked together and he was tireless in the office. His family is still in Ithaca, so he could come in early, he could stay late, he had really nowhere to go home to. He had an apartment with like no refrigerator. I'm not kidding, no TV, no refrigerator, so he stayed in the office and his work ethic and his preparation were phenomenal. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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