The first round draw of the back-to-back National Champion Duke Blue Devils appeared to be a stroke of bad luck for Ohio State. The Buckeyes, however, thought nothing of it.
Unseeded, and considered a tournament long shot until last weekend, the Buckeyes went into Durham and dominated the Blue Devils, handing them their first first-round tournament loss since 1995.
Duke jumped out to an early 3-1 lead, but from that point on it was all Buckeyes. Ohio State went on a 7-0 run to take them into the half leading 8-3. They were able to finish the job in the second half, playing mostly keep-away in the fourth quarter to win 16-11.
The Buckeyes controlled tempo, limiting the normally high powered Duke offense to just three goals in the first half— the only other team to accomplish that was the top ranked Syracuse Orange early in the season.
The win was due in no small part to senior midfielder David Planning who had a career high six goals. Junior Carter Brown also contributed to the scoring with a hat-trick of his own.
On the other side of the ball, the Buckeye defense had no trouble with one of the nation's top players in Duke scoring machine Myles Jones. They held the high powered Duke offense to just 11 goals, again their lowest total since their early season loss to Syracuse.
Ohio State advances to the NCAA Quarterfinals next weekend and will meet the winner of tomorrow's Brown vs Denver match-up.
Survive and advance.
