The Blue Hens did something they hadn’t before by playing – and winning — an NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament game on their home field Wednesday night.
Now Delaware attempts to repeat a previous accomplishment, which is a significantly more challenging proposition.
Considering the week they’ve had, the Hens are likely to relish the opportunity.
A 20-8 victory over Robert Morris in a play-in round game at Delaware Stadium was as thorough as could be for Delaware, which will hope that provides some valuable momentum.
They’ll need it.
BOX SCORE: Delaware 20, Robert Morris 8
Next up is No. 2-seeded Big East champ Georgetown (15-1), which has won 11 straight since falling 10-8 to Princeton way back on March 5.
The Blue Hens will try to make history repeat itself in Washington, D.C., on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. (ESPNU).
They’ll seek to equal the epic accomplishment of their 2007 predecessors, who stunned No. 2 Virginia 14-8 in Charlottesville in the round of 16. Delaware then downed UMBC to reach the Final Four, where it lost to eventual champ Johns Hopkins.
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“I think our guys know that they can do it,” Delaware fifth-year coach Ben DeLuca said. “They know they can compete with anybody in the country. What we try to do is focus on us, our preparation, what we need to do and make sure that we are paying attention to details that are important to us and the things that we can control.
“But I think as a coaching staff we recognize that there’s a chance and that’s all we’re looking for.”
Delaware has never beaten the Hoyas in nine tries. They were all from 1998 through 2010, a stretch when the Blue Hens did send four team to the NCAA Tournament.
“They’re obviously an extremely good team and it’s gonna be a fight on Sunday,” said sophomore attackman J.P. Ward, who scored five of Delaware’s goals. “They’re a pretty good team that we just beat and it all comes down to how we play on Sunday.”
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Delaware (12-5) will carry a 6-game win streak into that game that includes equally dominant wins over Drexel 19-6 and Towson 11-6 in the Colonial Athletic Association playoffs last Thursday and Saturday.
RMU (10-6) came into the game averaging 13.27 goals per game. The Colonials had just scored 18 while beating Utah in overtime in the Atlantic Sun title game, avenging a 10-goal defeat in April.
But Tye Kurtz scored 1:39 into the game and Delaware kept the goals coming. Delaware led 6-1 after the first period, 10-2 at halftime and 15-4 entering the final period.
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Ten different Blue Hens scored, including three goals each by Kurtz and Mike Robinson, Ward’s mates in Delaware’s No. 1 attacking unit. Caesar Rodney High graduate Demetrius Stevenson scored the 20th, giving the Hens their most goals in a game since a 20-5 win on April 19, 2008, against, ironically, Robert Morris.
“We want everyone to be a threat to score at any point in time,” DeLuca said, “and we’re looking for the best shot not that first shot. Our guys do a really good job of moving the ball, being patient and then when they have opportunities capitalizing on them.’’
Delaware also won 20 of 32 face-offs and snared 38 groundballs to the Colonials’ 21, a revealing statistic. That made for a happy return to the NCAA Tournament, in which Delaware has now appeared seven times but not since 2011.
“To have a performance like that is really a true credit to their work ethic and their preparation,” DeLuca said of his team.
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