DURHAM, N.C. ? A season lost. Three players indicted for rape. Nearly a year of criticism for everyone associated with Duke lacrosse. On this day, for a few hours, it didn’t seem to matter as much.

Playing their first game in 11 months, the Blue Devils opened the 2007 season Saturday with a 17-11 victory over Dartmouth in front of a big crowd cheering their every move.

It was a triumphant return for the Blue Devils, whose season was canceled last spring amid the rape allegations that touched off a debate on sports, race, class and privilege at the elite university.

The crowd of 6,485 fans – a few hundred shy of the school record – rivaled that typically drawn by Duke’s woeful football team.