This is long delayed posting. While college is in session, I am crazy busy with sports to cover and often get behind. With that, many photos of Duke lacrosse took a back seat during the year and were never posted. I do now however have more images up from the home-opener v. Dartmouth game and have finally posted the Delaware photos. Up next is the ACC championship of Duke v. UVA.

• Duke lacrosse v. Dartmouth photo gallery (215 images)
• Duke lacrosse v. Delaware photo gallery (133 images)

Tuesday of last week, I emailed Art Chase, sports information director for Duke men’s Lacrosse, to explore the feasibility of going with the Duke men’s lacrosse team last weekend for the Final Four in Baltimore, MD. Originally the plan for me was to go for Inside Lacrosse. But, after reviewing their budget, it was apparent they would not be able to afford flying and housing me up there. Looking at my budget, I couldn’t afford the trip either. Between hotels, gas and food, it was going to be at least $1,000. The email to Art was a shot in the dark to see if he had a photographer going up with him to Baltimore with the team. Ever since James Schaffer from Inside Lacrosse did a photo story on the team for their “Two Days In Durham” article, I wanted to something with the team also. But I thought the chances of Art saying, “Sure come on up with us”, were about as high as me emailing head coach John Danowski, asking if I could play and him saying “Yes”.

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I was in the locker room Monday and saw Matt Danowski take off his Duke jersey for what I thought would be the last time. However, it has just been announced that the Duke players from the 2006 team are going to be granted another year of eligibility. Should all the seniors return, especially Danowski, Casey Carroll and Nick O’Hara, Duke lacrosse will be a juggernaut next year and surely favored to win the 2008 title.Below is the press release from the NCAA: Read the rest of this entry »

The back of the line was further than one could see. Little kids with lacrosse sticks, balls, hats, posters, anything they could find that was signable, were in line waiting for the Duke men’s lacrosse team. Between the DII and DIII national championship games, the NCAA hosted an autograph session for the two DI finalist teams: Johns Hopkins and Duke. I’m not sure how many showed up, but it was in the 100’s, approaching a thousand.As Duke resurfaces from the false allegations in Spring 2006, it was a great to see the outpouring of support from fans. Parents wanted their children to meet and have their picture taken with the players. Fans also flocked around Coach Danowski. They gave him their support and asked questions like “How do you prepare your team for a title game.”Tonight there is a team meeting at 9:30. The guys are going to watch film from the Cornell game. Tomorrow of course is the big game.Too busy now to get a gallery up, but I will try to do that in the next few days.

Photo Galleries:

• –> Practice at M&T Stadium
• –> ESPN Clinic

We arrived yesterday around 5pm but today was the first full day of events. We departed the hotel at 11am and arrived at M&T Bank Stadium shortly after for practice at 11:30am. There are already about four TV cameras on the field filming practice. Afterwards a few of the players and Coach Danowski had a meeting with the media.At 4pm, we came back to the stadium as Matt Danowski, Zach Greer and Colin Sherwood were filmed by ESPN doing a coaching clinic with ESPN lacrosse analyst Quint Kessenich. I think it took a 100 takes to finally get everything down, but look for the final product tomorrow during the semifinals.So far everything has been great here. The weather has certainly been warm. Coach Danowski has also been really friendly; he has taken to calling me “Peyton Manning”.***Updated 5/27 with links to photo galleries.***

…the Blue Devils actually. After beating my Heels Sunday, the Duke men’s lacrosse team is heading to Baltimore for the Final Four. The opportunity has come up for me to travel with the team and photograph the behind-the-scenes as they head to the semifinals and possibly the national championship. The opportunity was frankly too much to pass-up; it’s not every day I get the chance to follow a team that is national championship bound, especially in a sport I love so much. If this was softball, can’t say I’d be one-tenth as excited (my apologies to all the softball players reading this).

Sooooooo, I will be shipping out with the team tomorrow to head to Baltimore. The team plays first on Saturday and if they win, will play again on Monday. My guess is I will be home Monday after they win the title. They have so many weapons it’s hard seeing them not win.

My Tar Heel brethern are probably shaking their heads right now at me for going up with Duke; especially the guys on the UNC men’s lacrosse team. Sorry guys, I hope you’ll understand!I’m excited and a little nervous about this trip. I only know one player on the entire Duke team so I’ll feel out of place for a while. Much unlike the UNC team where I know half the guys and went to college with one of the assistant coaches. But I’ll deal; I have had to do it before.

Inside Lacrosse is reporting that the NCAA will consider granting members of the 2006 Duke lacrosse team another year of eligibility after having their 2006 season canceled. Oh man, just when I thought having  Zach Greer and company was going be tough enough for the Heels to beat next year, will we see Danowski, O’Hara, Carrol, Loftus and McDevitt back too? If that happens, expect a ridiculously talented Duke team to return next year.

Gallery: Photos of Duke Lacrosse v UNC

Those who wear either shade of blue in the Duke/Carolina rivalry find it to be a bipolar existence. The winning times are the best of times; the loosing times always hurt. Such was Sunday when North Carolina squared off against Duke in the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Quarterfinals.

The game began as standard Duke/UNC issue rivalry. First, players on the two teams traded, um, emotions when they entered the stadium at nearly the same time. Second, there was a disagreement on what side UNC was to be on and what side Duke was to be on. Once it was sorted out, Duke players were sent scrambling to find their sticks on the ground amongst all the UNC ones after being sent to the other bench. Stuff like this only happens between these rivals. Also, much like previous UNC/Duke lacrosse games, UNC began with running up the score only to loose to a more ambitious run-up by the Blue Devils. While UNC was up at the end of the first half, Duke scored 7 points in both the third and fourth quarters to UNC’s 3 points the entire 2nd half.

While the loss was hard to take, the words of Coach Haus in the locker room after the game rang true: Only eight teams were fortunate enough to play this weekend while all the others stayed home. We got to play.I feel honored to have had the opportunity to cover the team. Pulling out my dinky little SLR camera for the first time and photographing lacrosse when I was a freshman at UNC some 10 years ago is what made me fall in love with sports photography and lacrosse. Since then, both have been a passion of mine. To be able to travel with team combined both of my loves and I will appreciate the opportunity.

Thanks to coach Haus and Dave Lohse for letting me come out. Thanks to all the guys for letting me photograph a moment in their lives. I look forward to next year.

Photo Gallery: Duke Lacrosse v Air Force.

Duke played a late regular season game against the Air Force Falcons on Sunday, easily winning 19-6 in a game that left the Duke defense twiddling their thumbs while the offense scored mercilessly. In the second half, Duke cleared the bench; gone were the familiar jerseys of Danowski, Greer, Carrol and McFadyen and in were players that I didn’t even know played for Duke. As I edited the photos from the game, I had to keep reaching for the roster as I asked myself “Who the heck is this?” over and over. Photographically speaking, it was snoozer of a game. The Falcons were too overmatched to create exciting photos. Knowing what a boring blowout the game would be, Inside Lacrosse didn’t even bother hiring me for the game. Can’t say I blame them at all. Fans of Zach Greer however could have created a highlight reel from just this game as he alone scored five.

While Duke still has lots of lacrosse to play, presumably right up until Memorial Day (that’s when the NCAA Championship is for all you non-lacrosse heads), Sunday ended the regular season. Even without NCAA post-season having started, Duke has now played twice as many games as they played all last year after a Duke President, with an itchy finger on the button, dumped the entire team’s season. All that mess aside, the success of Duke this year is nothing short of amazing; and this coming from a Tar Heel born and bred, hate Dook fan. Duke had the handicap of a shortened season last year, leaving the team with vastly less practice time. Throw a wrench in the cog of having a new coach and the national media scrutiny bearing down on the guys, this wasn’t suppose to be a #1 ranked team. But at 14-2, that is how Duke is ranked in the upcoming NCAA tournament. Nearly everyone who knows the difference between a long and short lacrosse stick projects them to make the Final Four; and most project the NCAA Championship Trophy to be on a team bus heading to Durham after Memorial Day weekend. Whether this happens or not, the success of the team can’t be discounted; it is down right remarkable.

Speaking of success, that of my alma mater in Chapel Hill has been nothing short of stunning. After loosing Ryan Blair, Andrew and Stephen McElduff among others, I expected 2007 to be another rough season for the Heels. But it started with a 11-8 win over Notre Dame; a game was written off as a “lock” win for Notre Dame by some. “It” was a culture of winning that finally began to permeate the team. Last year we just seemed resigned to loosing. This year, we have fought for every point, every second. We even gave the titans of Duke and UVA a run for their money. Wins over UNC are now considered “quality wins” instead of the easy kind. It’s nice to finally be a boost to an opposing team’s SOS. One of the greatest moments for Tar Heel lacrosse was when we shocked the Hop (Johns Hopkins) 13-10. It was by far one of the most thrilling moment in my life as a professional sports photographer and Tar Heel fan. That game was held at Kenan Stadium where two years ago the football team shocked then #2 Miami. The upset over Hopkins was no less important to the school. It legitimized the team and showed that we can and would compete at the national level. This year was great, but man I can’t wait until next year. If you live in the Triangle, this weekend will hold some great NCAA action. In what could be a blowout, Duke will take on Providence at noon on Saturday at Duke. Later at 5pm UNC will take on Navy at Fetzer Field.

I was in Durham last year when the North Carolina Men’s Lacrosse team played at Duke. UNC racked up points left and right going on a 6-0 run and made Duke look like a high school team. But in the 2nd quarter, Duke’s offense came to life and went on a 11-2 scoring tear, beating UNC 11-8 in the end.

Saturday UNC and Duke met again and the storyline was eerily familiar. UNC again bolts to a big lead, this time 6-1. After making it 6-1, UNC would not score again until Duke scored another score to make the score 7-5. But worse for UNC, that lone goal to make it 7 at 12:12 in the 3rd quarter would be our last as Duke would make 4 unanswered goals to make the final 7-9.I don’t know why, but this game was hard to photograph. Sometimes you have games that are as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. But this game didn’t provide a ton of good photographic moments.

Here are my photos of Duke Lacrosse at North Carolina.