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Nakeie Montgomery stood on the Duke sidelines, awaiting instruction as the sounds of more than 13,000 fans behind him at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium shifted from a polite applause to an audible roar.

Johns Hopkins had cut a four-goal deficit to just one in the NCAA quarterfinal. Duke needed to find an answer and needed it quickly.

Senior captain Sean Cerrone walked up to Montgomery.

“You want to be in the game right now?” Cerrone pressed the freshman.

Montgomery simply nodded, and he entered into one of the most important sequences of the Blue Devils’ season. Less than a minute after the Johns Hopkins goal, Montgomery was in Duke’s offensive zone, ready to attack.

He took a feed from Peter Conley, tip-toed up to his defender and gave him a little shake-and-bake action — in a flash, he was in on goal and scoring his first goal of the game. Duke led 10-8.

The Blue Devils won the ensuing faceoff and it didn’t take long for the ball to land in Montgomery’s stick once again. This time, he got under his defender and burned by a long pole to get free for his second goal in 46 seconds. Just like that, Montgomery had turned the game on its axis.

“Hey, maybe you do want to do get in the game,” Cerrone said after Montgomery’s outburst.

“Yeah man, put me back in,” he said.

Montgomery, out of Episcopal School of Dallas (Texas), injected life in a Duke team that was on the brink of losing its grip on the NCAA quarterfinal. It was a coming out party of sorts for the uber-athletic freshman that grew up playing football in Dallas. 

Although Duke’s senior class deserves much of the credit for its first final four run since 2014, Montgomery and a supporting cast have provided a boost for John Danowski’s team. Now, the Blue Devils will head to Foxborough, Mass. with a roster full of weapons, like Montgomery, ready to strike.

“We’re so excited,” Montgomery said, his mind focusing on Gillette Stadium. “There’s going to be so many people there.”

Danowski said the ceiling is high for the freshman that has had his ups and downs as he adjusted to Division I lacrosse.

“Nakeie (pronounced nuh-KAI) did a terrific job of finishing in front of the goal,” Danowski said. “He does have a nose for the cage. We’re very proud of his progress, but know that he’s not even touching the surfaces of what he’s going to become.”

It’s a skillset that has drawn comparisons to another Duke great — Myles Jones. But it’s not all that surprising given his upbringing in Texas.

Montgomery’s father, DeAndre, played football at Texas Southern alongside future NFL Hall of Fame inductee Michael Strahan. That’s the sport that he began playing as early as he could, starting with flag and moving to pads as an adolescent.

It wasn’t until an elementary school hallway conversation with his best friend, Preston Randolph (who plays lacrosse at Hampton), that he even knew about lacrosse. 

“We’re just talking and he said, ‘I have to go to lacrosse practice,’” Montgomery said. “I was like, ‘What’s lacrosse?’ My dad played college football, and so I grew up with a football in my hands.”

Randolph suggested he check out a practice, and he accepted. Teammates made fun of Montgomery because he couldn’t figure out how to scoop. But it took just a few practices to get him hooked.

From an early age, Montgomery had his eyes on the goal. Even when he played defense, he wanted to score. He noticed how his speed gave him an advantage on the lacrosse field.

“I was clearing it from the defensive end and I ran through or around four different people,” he said. “I was like, ‘Wow. That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done.’ I thought that was so cool because leading up to that, I was working on scooping and cradling. It was the whole process coming to fruition.”

Once he had the lacrosse skills to match the intangibles, Montgomery was sought after both for the high school team and beyond. He joined the football and lacrosse teams at Episcopal School of Dallas — playing running back for the competitive private school. 

He competed in front of crowds as large as 3,500 fans, both in lacrosse and football. 

“I talked to my friends on the East Coast and they don’t quite get numbers like we did down in Texas, humblebrag,” he joked.

At the same time, Montgomery was getting college offers in both sports. After attending a Brine national camp, both Duke and Michigan contacted him for lacrosse. His mother, Caravhoni Punch, wanted her son to visit Michigan so she could see the Big House, but he had his heart set on Duke’s campus in Durham.

He committed to Duke over the phone in 2013. He continued his high school career at Episcopal School, tallying 317 points in his lacrosse career and breaking the school record with 31 rushing touchdowns in football.

It was a combination of standout statistics and highlights that caught the attention of Jones in 2013. A junior at Duke, Jones was interning in Oregon with Nike, and was charged with running a camp that brought the top players in the country together.

One of the players he was most excited about? Nakeie Montgomery. 

“I was a big fan of Nakeie’s game,” Jones said. “He was a multi-sport athlete, like myself. I saw that in the way he carried himself on the field. He was a very confident player. I saw a lot of myself in him, especially at his age.”

Montgomery bonded with Jones throughout the camp, asking about certain or areas on which to focus. The two have been texting back and forth ever since. Montgomery said Jones is one of his biggest inspirations.

After he’s done FaceTiming with his mother, Montgomery will text with Jones about what he can improve upon for each game of his freshman year. It’s a perfect dynamic given Jones has been through many of the same growing pains.

“I knew he was going through that learning curve that I did,” Jones said. “I took it upon myself to reach out to him and tell him to keep his nose down and keep working and out of nowhere, it was going to work out for him. I played in college and the MLL. I see what kind of athletes dominate the game. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone as quick as this kid. When you watch Nakeie, he almost tiptoes up to his defender and out of nowhere, he’s three steps ahead of him. That comes from his football background of playing in the slot and making moves off the line of scrimmage.”

As much as his goal-scoring ability will shine, Montgomery has had trouble holding onto the ball during his freshman season. The adjustment from high school to college took time to overcome, but Montgomery had shown glimpses of becoming a fixture in the Duke lineup.

Montgomery first needed to find consistency in his game. Senior Justin Guterding, who broke the Division I career scoring record with goal No. 207 on Sunday, wrote the phrase “W or D” on Montgomery’s gloves — the same thing assistant coach Ron Caputo had done for him during his freshman season in 2015. It stood for “win or draw,” and it was a reminder that Montgomery didn’t have to score every possession, just maintain possession.

Danowski knew he had a player capable of taking over the game; he just didn’t know when it would come to fruition.

“He was a multi-sport athlete, which is something that we really hunt for in recruiting,” he said. “Some of the things, you can see, that he is able to do in the open field is pretty similar to being a running back. No one wants to get hit by big linebackers and defensive backs. The other thing is he is a terrific student, so we knew that he had a great upside in terms of being coachable.”

Whatever the reason, Montgomery seems to be reaping the benefits of help from Danowski, Caputo, Guterding, Jones and others. He scored three goals in the first-round win over Villanova on May 12 and followed it with the two-goal fourth quarter against Johns Hopkins.

He’s reaching his potential late in his freshman season, and it’s coming at a good time for the final-four bound Blue Devils. Duke will meet Maryland in the second of two NCAA semifinals Saturday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.

“Nakeie has shown those glimpses of the ability to do that,” Danowski said. “We’re delighted but we’re not totally shocked by it, either. The younger guys are starting to come of age.”

Montgomery is part of a freshman class that includes Joe Robertson, who sits second on the team with 43 goals. It’s another era of Duke offensive threats waiting in the wings once Guterding and company move on.

But none of them want that transition to happen just yet. Duke’s eyes are on another national title, and Montgomery could play a big role in its chances.