Duke Spoils Richmond's Big Night, Moves to Quarters

RICHMOND, Va. — Everything was in place for another Richmond breakthrough. A gorgeous night. A record crowd. Fireworks for another event on campus timed to go off right around the time the Spiders’ first NCAA tournament home game would conclude.

Duke, though, had a say, too.

The Blue Devils scored the final five goals in a 14-12 victory Saturday night, spoiling fourth-seeded Richmond’s dream season and sending the 6,805 at Robins Stadium — a record attendance for a NCAA first round game — home dejected.

Cal Girard won 21 of 27 faceoffs and Liam Kershis had three goals and two assists for Duke (10-4), which will meet either fifth-seeded Virginia (10-6) or Georgetown (10-4) in the quarterfinals next Sunday in Newark, Del.

“With a young team, sometimes you get so emotional, you’re a little bit out of control,” Blue Devils coach John Danowski said. “I thought the guys in that fourth quarter were terrific.”

It was the third time in four years the tournament’s No. 4 seed was bounced in the first round, with Richmond joining 2023 Maryland (against Army) and 2025 Ohio State (against Notre Dame) among teams making early exits.

The Spiders (14-2) were coming off a long-awaited postseason breakthrough last season, when they toppled North Carolina on the road in the first round and then gave eventual national champ Cornell its toughest game of the tournament a week later.

Much of that team returned this year, then won its first nine games to attract even greater attention, including the cover of USA Lacrosse Magazine in April. Seniors were scattered throughout important spots on the roster: Attackman Aidan O’Neil, midfielder Joe Sheridan, defenseman Hunter Smith, short stick midfielder Jack Pilling, among others.

And for the end to come so abruptly, after Richmond had gone up three in the fourth quarter, only amplified the Spiders’ agony.

“The best word I can use is transformational,” Richmond coach Dan Chemotti said. “The belief in those guys, that exist in those guys and that those guys had brought to the university when they were freshmen and that they continued every single day was very real and it just permeated through the entire group, myself included. To say goodbye to those guys still hasn’t quite sunk in. I think I’m very much in denial.”

On the other sideline, there was undeniable glee. Duke appeared all but doomed to miss the NCAA tournament just three weeks ago after a four-game losing streak and the absence of any sort of season-defining victory.

Then the Blue Devils beat North Carolina 16-12 on April 25 to close the regular season to vastly boost its profile, and while they didn’t make the ACC tournament, it turned out to be a blessing. Their resume didn’t get worse, and almost everything else fell in their favor.

And they had a blueprint for how to succeed thanks to their comfortable victory in Chapel Hill.

“I think it just comes down to our shot percentage,” Kershis said. “We knew we were getting 40-60 shots every single game. It was just our shooting percentage and honestly putting the ball in the net. That was what our focus was going into UNC and this game, too. We all have great shooters. If we just put the ball on net and give ourselves a chance, they’ll fall eventually.”

It helped that field tilted toward Duke all night. Girard won 11 of 12 faceoffs in the first half as Duke built a 6-4 lead at the break. Little wonder Chemotti admitted the 5-foot-6 junior was the player he most feared on the Blue Devils’ roster.

And Girard didn’t slow much in the second half, placing pressure on a usually stingy Richmond defense simply by keeping it on the field.

“I knew if we just kept our poise on offense and took our time and really broke down the defense, we’d more than likely get the ball back,” Kershis said.

But staying poised couldn’t have been easy in several stretches. Despite the faceoff dominance, the Blue Devils saw a three-goal lead early in the second half wiped out in less than five minutes. Then Richmond went on its best run of the night, highlighted by one of the night’s savviest plays.

Defenseman Nate Murphy — who already had a hockey assist on long pole Brayden Penafeather-Stevenson’s transition goal late in the first half — flung a pass about 70 yards to O’Neil, who slipped behind the defense and beat goalie Buck Cunningham with 0.6 seconds left in the third quarter to nudge Richmond ahead 10-9.

“When we scored that goal at the end of the third quarter and the way that place erupted, we felt invincible for a few moments just because of the support we had behind us,” Chemotti said.

Gavin Creo (four goals) then scored exceptionally creative back-to-back goals — once by spinning past a defender to get a clear look, then by wriggling under a long pole and burying a scoop shot — to extend the lead to three.

And when Brady Scioletti’s goal with 10:33 left was disallowed because Kershis stepped in the crease before feeding it to the midfielder for an eight-yard shot, it was seemingly another jolt for the Spiders.

But Girard was still cooking, and Duke was getting help from a lot of places. Even though midfielder Max Sloat was held scoreless on four shots and Smith stymied the Blue Devils’ Benn Johnston for much of the night, Duke had mustered enough from elsewhere to still have a chance.

One came from short stick Connor Nolen. Another from freshman Anthony Drago, the first of his career. Short stick Aidan Maguire fired one into an empty net in the third quarter. And midfielder Jack Pappendick scored for the first time since March 14 to draw Duke within 12-11.

Johnston tied with his second goal, a 12-yard diagonal dart off a Kershis pass with 6:09 left. And while Richmond couldn’t generate good looks late in the game and committed a shot clock violation with 2:28 left, Kyle Colsey beat a short stick and fired in a go-ahead shot while absorbing a push at the 1:37 mark.

Girard (naturally) won the next faceoff, with Maguire finally collecting a ground ball out of an extended scrum. Moments later, Maguire fired a 30-yarder into an open net to seal it.

“In these games, you need other people to make plays,” Danowski said of Duke’s display of depth. “It’s not your stars. It’s not Max Sloat or Benn Johnston. It’s Liam Kershis, who’s becoming that guy, but it is those other guys. That’s how you get to 14. Otherwise you don’t get to 14; you get to eight or nine and you don’t win and you go home.”

That was Richmond’s fate on a night that might have seemed unimaginable when Chemotti took the job to help found the program in the summer of 2012. Whatever growing pains the Spiders have endured are enviable compared to other start-ups in the last 20 years; they’ve been to a conference title game in all 12 complete seasons they’ve played.

Saturday was one of the most wrenching nights for the program, if only because of how much was at stake. The unfortunately timed fireworks from the school’s Candlelight Ceremony, a night-before-commencement tradition at Richmond, felt almost mocking as the teams completed the postgame handshakes.

Duke was the clear winner Saturday. And yet it was still a victory for Richmond and its budding lacrosse community, a group that experienced a wondrous season and the cruelty of May. And there’s every reason to think it — and the Spiders — will be back again for more before long.

“Seeing the 6,800 people in the stands was special,” Chemotti said. “I give credit to the guys, I give credit to the department for making this just an awesome place to play lacrosse. We’ve been lucky to bring in some notable teams to Robins Stadium, and the fans, the attendance, the experience, our marketing people, everybody does an incredible job, and they’ve made this one of the best lacrosse venues in the country.”