Duke vs. Notre Dame final score: Blue Devils win second consecutive Men’s Lacrosse Championship, 11-9

Coming into the 2014 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships, a lot of people put their money on the top-seeded Duke Blue Devils to walk away with their second consecutive national championship. which they ultimately did on Monday afternoon as they held off a late surge by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to get the 11-9 victory in the national title game.

To the credit of Notre Dame, however, they made sure that it wouldn’t be that easy for Duke to capture another trophy.

Through much of the first quarter, it seemed as if this game was going to be a battle. The scoring didn’t get started the midway point in the first quarter off a goal by Duke’s Christian Walsh, giving the Blue Devils the 1-0 lead with about eight minutes to go. Just as the quarter was coming to an end, Deemer Class put one in the net to give Duke the 2-0 lead.

Duke would end up going into the half with a commanding 5-1 lead, meaning that Notre Dame would have to turn it on in the second half, which they did.

At one point things got really out of hand in the third quarter when Duke took an 8-3 lead, but then the irish started their surge.

Beginning with a goal from Ben Pridemore near the end of the third, Notre Dame rattled off three consecutive goals to get the lead to 8-6, and even had the game at 10-9 with 49 seconds to go in the game, putting the pressure on the defending champions to hold off the onslaught.

With 23 seconds to go in regulation, Duke’s Jordan Wolf would make sure that his team walked away with their second consecutive national championship when he nailed his 64th goal of the season.

Congratulations are in order for the Duke Blue Devils on going back-to-back in Men’s Lacrosse.