The men's soccer team wrapped up its regular season with a decisive 3-0 win over Elon College Saturday afternoon. Although the Blue Devils walked away with the shutout victory, Elon (2-14-1) put up a tougher fight than expected.
The Fighting Christians played a stronger defensive game than anyone would have guessed. Elon goalies, freshman Scot Wahl and junior Court Parker, combined to make 17 saves on 31 Duke shots, while Blue Devil freshman goalie Jeff Haywood made three saves on only four shots attempted by Elon.
"We knew that we should win and we dominated the game, but they were tougher than we expected," senior Steve midfielder Maynard said. "They played 11 defenders and really packed things in the backfield so it was hard to get in a shot."
The first goal of the game came at 15:45 when Maynard netted a free kick shot past Wahl. The Blue Devils would not score again until sophomore forward Troy Garner made good off a pass from freshman defender Dwayne Harris 1:17 into the second half.
"In the first half, although we had a lot of scoring opportunities, we couldn't get the ball in because their whole team was on defense," Garner said. "In the second half we finally started going over the top and out to the wing like we've been doing in practice. We just had to be a little more patient to get things done."
Duke's leading scorer, freshman forward Ali Curtis, added the final goal of the game and his 12th of the season with 23:38 remaining in regulation off a pass from junior defender Evan Whitfield.
Elon was by no means the Blue Devil's toughest competition of the year, but the game did provide the team with a good learning experience.
"We trained really hard in practice the week before, so it didn't really matter that Elon was the last game we played before heading into the [Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament]," Curtis said. "In fact, we used the game to get better in that we tried out things that we couldn't have tried if we had played a better team."
Saturday afternoon's win marks the fifth time in the last six years that Duke has won at least 15 games as they improved their record to 15-4. With the ACC Tournament less than one week away, the Blue Devils have no intention of slowing down.
"[Saturday's] game wasn't much of an indication of how well we can play," Maynard said. "We've been playing better in practice and when we play a team that wants to play us, we will step up to the level of play we are capable of. The team looks really good and we can't wait for the [ACC] Tournament to begin."
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