EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – In the end, the tight game came down to preservation between the pipes.

And Duke’s veteran goaltender Dan Wigrizer shut the door for the Blue Devils.

After an erratic performance in the first half, making just one save and yielding six goals, the junior buckled down in the second half to stymie Syracuse’s late comeback attempt.

‘It may have appeared that Dan Wigrizer was struggling a little bit, and there may have been times that he was,’ Duke head coach John Danowski said, ‘but in the fourth quarter I thought he made all the saves that the team needed.’

After a high-scoring contest through three quarters, Wigrizer and Syracuse goaltender Dominic Lamolinara both settled down in the final quarter. But Wigrizer ultimately outdid his counterpart, making two more necessary stops down the stretch to help No. 8 Duke (9-3, 1-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) earn a 12-10 victory over No. 14 Syracuse (4-4, 2-1 Big East) at MetLife Stadium on Sunday.

Wigrizer finished with eight saves in the game, with four coming in the final period to hold off the Orange. Lamolinara, making his third straight start, made 10 saves but only stopped two shots in the fourth quarter.

The Syracuse goaltender felt the heat in the second quarter, allowing six goals on 10 shots. He came up with some huge stops down the stretch, but he also yielded two goals that were too much to overcome in the SU loss.

‘I thought they shot the ball extremely well,’ SU head coach John Desko said. ‘In a venue like this you can see the replays, and when I looked up to see where we may have made a defensive mistake, I looked at their shots and the placement of their shots, and I thought they placed the ball really well.’

The Blue Devils’ offense came through with what proved to be the game-winner to break open a tie game in the fourth quarter.

SU midfielder JoJo Marasco scored less than two minutes into the fourth quarter to knot the game at 10. Then Duke midfielder Robert Rotanz fired a low shot past Lamolinara off a feed from Jordan Wolf to give Duke an 11-10 lead.

But Lamolinara didn’t cave. He made an outright save on Jordan Wolf from 10 yards out and made another dramatic kick save to hold Duke’s lead to one.

The Blue Devils kept Lamolinara on his heels all day, outshooting the Orange 42-29. But after Syracuse crawled back, Duke’s fourth-quarter goals proved costly.

‘It’s fun. I play goalie to make saves, so when I’m actually back there doing something it’s actually a fun day,’ Lamolinara said. ‘A couple misses at the beginning, but they started to stick it in the corners, and I’ve got to work on my outside shots a lot better in practice.’

Wigrizer matched Lamolinara blow for blow in the final quarter, turning a subpar performance into a strong one with his fourth quarter.

With less than 10 minutes remaining, Marasco fired a low shot from straightaway and Wigrizer dropped to his knees to catch it. Attack Collin Donahue got a look from 5 yards out, but Wigrizer made an impressive kick save from one knee to preserve Duke’s one-goal lead.

Wigrizer made another huge stop with his helmet on a Tommy Palasek shot from point-blank with less than four minutes to go, turning away a golden opportunity for the Orange.

Both teams were held scoreless for nine minutes in the fourth quarter, but Duke midfielder Jake Tripucka broke the drought with a goal with 3:05 remaining in regulation.

Lamolinara said he felt it wasn’t the defense that faltered; he simply struggled to make the big save down the stretch. He can see improvement in the defensive unit as whole, but he did not come up with the critical stops.

‘It definitely gave me some experience and giving me some opportunities,’ Lamolinara said. ‘I’m sure we’ll get better. We got to work on (some things), but our defense is definitely starting to jell a lot better.’

adtredin@syr.edu 

Published on April 1, 2012 at 12:00 pm