May 3, 2009

Center Valley, Pa.--No. 12/12 Navy, the Patriot League's automatic qualifier, has received a bid to play in the 2009 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament. The Mids won their fifth Patriot League Championship in the past six seasons and will participate in their sixth consecutive NCAA Tournament. Navy will open the tournament on the road against third-seeded Duke on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The tournament field was announced Sunday evening.

Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for students and children and may be purchased online at GoDuke.com or by calling the Duke Athletic Ticket Office at 1-877-375-DUKE. The game will be televised by ESPNU.

Navy is 5-5 in its last five trips to the NCAA Tournament, including a berth in the 2004 NCAA Championship. The Mids reached the national quarterfinals last season, defeating North Carolina in the first round before falling to Johns Hopkins.

Last weekend, Navy claimed its fifth Patriot League Championship in the last six seasons. The third-seeded Mids notched back-to-back 9-8 wins to win the crown. Navy topped second-seeded Colgate in triple overtime, before outlasting top-seeded Bucknell in the title game.

Brendan Connors and Tim Paul lead the Navy offense with 31 points apiece. Connors has a team-best 21 goals, in addition to 10 assists. Despite missing two games, Paul has recorded 18 goals and 13 assists. Since being inserted into the starting lineup, senior goalkeeper Tommy Phelan has stabilized the Navy defensive unit. In six games, Phelan is 5-1 with victories over four ranked teams. He has made 81 saves while stopping 63 percent of the shots he has faced. He has limited foes to 7.69 goals per game.

Navy owns a commanding 24-9 series advantage over Duke, however, the Blue Devils have won each of the last six. Additionally, the two programs have not met since 1999, when the Blue Devils dealt the Mids a 9-4 loss in Durham. Next Saturday's contest will mark the first time the two teams have met in postseason play.

The winner of the Navy-Duke game will play the winner of the UMBC-North Carolina (6) contest in one of the two quarterfinal games played at Navy-Marine Corp Memorial Stadium in Annapolis on May 17. The other quarterfinal will feature the winners of the Brown-Johns Hopkins (8) and Villanova-Virginia (1) games.

The 2009 NCAA semifinals and National Championship are set for May 23 and 25 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.

The 16-team field includes seven conference champions with automatic qualification - American East Conference (UMBC), Colonial Athletic Association (Villanova), Eastern College Athletic Conference (Massachusetts), Great Western Lacrosse League (Notre Dame), Ivy League (Princeton), Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Siena) and Patriot League (Navy) - with the rest of the field selected at large.

View Complete NCAA Tournament Bracket

View Release From Navy Athletic Communications