Duke in 'all lacrosse, all the time' mode as Long Islanders return home for NCAA quarterfinals at Hofstra
Notre Dame's Pat Kavanagh controls the ball against Kenny Brower of Duke in the NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship game at Lincoln Financial Field on May 29, 2023, in Philadelphia. Credit: Getty Images
Duke men's lacrosse coach John Danowski looks forward to graduation each year. Not because it means he has to say goodbye to his players who are moving on — a whopping 19 of those this year because of the extra eligibility granted to students during the pandemic — but because he can finally say hello to them whenever he wants.
With finals over, degrees conferred and celebrations completed, the only thing left on the players’ minds is their quest for a national championship which is just three wins away.
“This group of seniors, they didn’t have a high school graduation, so there was a lot of excitement from their families and that’s a lot of distraction,” Danowski said on Wednesday. “It’s Grandma and Granddad here, siblings here, and that’s not easy. We teach our guys to tell their parents ‘Listen, can you stay away until after the game?’ But that takes a toll on our guys. They are great kids, their families come first, yet what we are doing here for the seniors started four years ago, and they want to make sure they get it right.
“Now it’s just all lacrosse all the time.”
Ah, but with another potential distraction.
Homecoming.
Duke’s roster, like those of the three other teams playing in the NCAA quarterfinals at Hofstra beginning at noon on Saturday — top-seeded Notre Dame, Georgetown, and Duke’s opponent, Maryland — is peppered with Long Islanders. It is a list that includes some of the top players in the country: Duke’s 2023 Tewaaraton Award winner and 2024 Tewaaraton finalist Brennan O’Neill (Bay Shore/St. Anthony’s) along with other finalists Pat Kavanaugh (Rockville Centre/Chaminade) and Liam Entenmann (Point Lookout/Chaminade) for Notre Dame.
In Saturday's doubleheader there are a total of 27 players with roots from Long Island. And then there are the coaches. Danowski grew up in East Meadow and was a long-time coach at Hofstra. Georgetown’s Kevin Warne is from East Setauket and played for Danowski at Hofstra. Many assistants, trainers and staffers from each of the programs also call Long Island home. And on Saturday, they’ll all be back.
For some players this may be their first chance to play college lacrosse in front of their “home” fans, and for others like O’Neill, Kavanaugh and Entenmann it will be their last. But each of them carries that amazement and joy — and that little extra weight — which comes from getting to perform such a high-stakes act where they grew up.
“I went to a lot of Long Island Lizards games at Hofstra, which is like 20 minutes from my house,” Entenmann, Notre Dame’s goalie, told the South Bend Tribune last week after he was drafted by the New York Atlas of the Professional Lacrosse League.
Like everyone else, though, Entenmann will try to bury that burden and keep at arm’s length the gravitational tug from family and friends who understandably want to be a big part of a journey returning to where it began.
“We’ve come to realize that all the other stuff is secondary, and all that matters is showing up for two hours a day, getting the work done, putting the time in and staying humble,” Entenmann said. “Especially in the last year or so, that’s become a very important part of our culture and development every day.”
The two other Division I quarterfinal games will be played at Towson on Sunday when Johns Hopkins faces Virginia and Denver plays Syracuse. The four winners will advance to the semifinals in Philadelphia next weekend, and the championship game also will be played there on May 27.
Duke lost to Notre Dame in the final last year. They are seeded No. 1 and No. 2 in this tournament and appear to be on course for a rematch.
“We came back hungry from that experience,” Duke senior Aidan Danenza (Muttontown/St. Anthony’s) said on Wednesday. “We need to get over that hump. Bring a national championship back to Duke.”
He, like a few dozen others, will have to come back and go through Long Island to do that.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.