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BALTIMORE — Duke looked much more like a national title contender than a bunch that was the last team to squeak into the postseason, shredding sixth-seeded Johns Hopkins 19-6 on Saturday in the first round of the NCAA tournament at Homewood Field.

Justin Guterding had four goals and six assists, Joey Manown added four goals and Sean Lowrie provided three goals as part of a major push from the second midfield line to lead the Blue Devils (13-4) into a quarterfinal meeting with Ohio State or Loyola next Saturday in Hempstead, N.Y.

It was Duke’s first postseason victory since 2014, when it claimed its third national title in a five-year span.

“Our junior class as a whole, we know we really haven’t won anything,” Guterding said. “We’d never won a playoff game, we’ve never won an ACC championship. Now we got it under our belt and it’s time for us to play and have fun.”

One team’s fun is another’s misery, and it is difficult to imagine an uglier way to end a season than the one Hopkins (8-7) takes into the summer.

Kieran Eissler scored twice for Hopkins, which committed 20 turnovers and faded rapidly after scoring the game’s first two goals. It was the Blue Jays’ first postseason loss at Homewood since 1991, snapping a 17-game winning streak.

“I’ll be honest with you — 19-6, I felt like it was 30-6,” Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said.

It was clear early Duke planned to rapidly get into its offense and poke around the Blue Jays’ defensive vulnerabilities rather than settle into a six-on-six game. It wasn’t a one-time strategy for Duke, which found itself bogged down in its ACC tournament loss to Notre Dame before resolving to take a different approach in May.

It started with an 18-8 rout of Boston University in the regular-season finale, then continued against Hopkins.

“It was fun to run,” Guterding said. “We did it last week. After our Notre Dame game, we felt like we weren’t using our athleticism to our ability. Last week we got up and down and we were running and this week, same thing. We got to 19. We’re a very athletic group and we want to expose other teams when we run.”

Duke scored in a variety of ways, turning transition into goals as well as adding four extra-man goals. But largely, the Blue Devils did whatever they wanted after erasing the modest early hole.

“It’s hard to play in the box against good teams,” coach John Danowski said. “You have to figure out how to extend those. On a good day, maybe you score six or eight goals in the box. You don’t get to double digits just playing in the box. Defensively, as we’ve gotten better as we’ve made more stops and been able to get the ball of the ground, we’ve been able to run more.”

While senior Kyle Rowe won 18 of 24 faceoffs to help the Blue Devils dominate possession, one of the more eye-opening developments was the play of Duke’s second midfield. Lowrie, Mitch Russell and John Prendergast had combined for just nine goals in the Blue Devils’ last eight games; they totaled four in the first half against Hopkins.

Duke scored all three times the unit came on the field in the first quarter, with Prendergast capping the period with 20 seconds remaining to put Duke up 6-3. The lead would expand to 12-5 by halftime.

“Our team relaxed when that second group was making plays,” Danowski said.

The outcome was tied almost equally to Duke’s dominance and the Blue Jays’ disarray, and the latter plotline emerged an hour before the opening faceoff. Hopkins learned Friday night that goalie Gerald Logan would not play because of his failure to meet his academic requirements as a graduate student.

That left junior Brock Turnbaugh, who was yanked in losses to Maryland and Ohio State to close out the regular season and would meet the same fate against the Blue Devils. Turnbaugh departed late in the second quarter and would return in the second half; he stopped seven shots while yielding 14 goals.

“Certainly not the way you want to head into your first-round playoff game, with that kind of distraction,” Pietramala said. “But we’ve had distractions before. We try not to make much of it. And no offense, that had no bearing on the way we played today. We could have put three guys in there. We just didn’t play well. They punished us for everything we did wrong.” 

The margin of defeat matched the most lopsided in Hopkins’ proud postseason history (it dropped an 18-5 decision at Duke in the first round in 2010), and the 13-goal spread surpassed the combined margin of nine goals in the Blue Jays’ four previous NCAA tournament losses at Homewood.

But perhaps most unsettling for Hopkins was how this blowout cemented the echo between this season and the last. In 2016, the Blue Jays rolled into their showdown with Maryland at 8-4, but were handled by the Terrapins, fell in the Big Ten semifinals and were then pummeled in the first round of the postseason.

This time around? An even less flattering loss to Maryland, another quick Big Ten tournament exit and an ugly NCAA tournament cameo. The biggest difference was the end came at Homewood, where the Blue Jays had last dropped a 13-goal decision in 1954 against Maryland.

“I don’t think we handled the pressure very well,” Pietramala said. “This is the second year in a row this has happened. Make no mistake, that’s not lost on me. Obviously, some things need to change. I’ll shoulder the blame for it.”

Duke’s last two seasons ended with first-round losses, a trend the Blue Devils emphatically reversed Saturday. The last two times the Blue Devils beat Hopkins in the NCAA tournament, it went on to win a national title.

Might this be the start of a similar run —and get Duke back to its accustomed place on Memorial Day weekend?

“I think the eight final fours in a row, it’s unrealistic to expect that year after year,” Danowski said. “But the kids, they want to be there and they want to do those things and they want to be looked at in the same light as players who went before them.”

Three more games like Saturday, and they will be. Not bad for the last team into the field.

Towson Pulls Second Straight First Round Upset

Last season, Towson upended second-seeded Denver to advance to the NCAA quarterfinals. When the bracket revealed that the Tigers would travel to State College to face No. 7 Penn State this time, they knew they’d need that scenario to play out once again.

Towson, the CAA champions, pulled off the upset for the second straight year. It used a four-goal, second-half run to pull away from Penn State late and advance to the NCAA quarterfinals with an 12-8 victory. The Tigers will face the winner of the Syracuse/Yale first-round game on Sunday.

Joe Seider had four goals and two assists to lead the Towson attack, and Mike Lynch chipped in two straight goals during his team’s third-quarter run. Goalie Matt Hoy also had eight saves to preserve the lead.

Penn State goalie Colby Kneese came up with 16 saves, including nine in the first half when Towson outshot the home team 22-13. Grant Ament and Mac O’Keefe each had hat tricks.

Denver Flies By Air Force

Denver began its 2017 campaign with a 14-6 win over Air Force, with faceoff man Trevor Baptiste's dominance fueling the Pioneers offense. The two teams met again on Saturday in the first round of the NCAA tournament, and the Pioneers used the same formula to advance.

Baptiste won 23 of 27 faceoffs — including two in which he went coast-to-coast to score — to lead Denver to the 17-10 win over Air Force. The Pioneers (12-3) will face the winner of Notre Dame and Marquette in the second round next weekend.

Austin French had two goals in a tight first half that ended with a 6-3 Denver lead. The Pioneers outshot the Falcons 23-5 in the first half and 46-23 in the game.

Baptiste had both of his goals at the start of the second half, helping Denver jump out to a 9-3 lead and grab hold of the game. Air Force cut the deficit to 12-7, but Denver responded with a four-goal run to put the game away. Three different Pioneers — Connor Cannizzaro, Max Planning and French — had hat tricks in the game.