Two of Duke's best scoring opportunities resulted in goals in the first round of the NCAA tournament Friday night.
They just weren't for the Blue Devils.
Upstart UNC-Greensboro scored both of its goals immediately after narrow Duke misses, and the Spartans held off a late Blue Devil charge to win 2-0 in Koskinen Stadium, becoming just the third team with a losing record to win an NCAA tournament game.
Duke (10-8-2) lost its third straight after a 4-0-1 stretch that put it in position to host the opening round matchup.
"Our goal was to get into the NCAA playoffs, and we did," head coach John Kerr said. "We actually hosted the game, which we're on the wrong end of the score line, but we made some progress throughout the season.... The season didn't end on a great note, but hopefully we can learn from some of these experiences and think about them as we move forward."
UNC-G (9-11-2) seemed a step ahead of the Blue Devils for most of the contest, and a crucial swing in the 19th minute gave the Spartans all the momentum they needed. Duke drew a foul 30 yards out, and senior forward Mike Grella served the free kick inside to defender Darrius Barnes. Barnes launched a shot, but UNC-G goalkeeper Nate Berry made a diving save.
The Spartans aggressively pushed the ball up the field after the rebound, with forward Tebatso Manyama collecting the clear on the left flank. Manyama fed Nirav Kadam, who put the ball past goalkeeper Brendan Fitzgerald just 19 seconds after the Blue Devils missed a chance to take a 1-0 lead of their own.
"Our keeper made a great save, and we went from potentially 1-0 down to 1-0 up 30 seconds later," UNC-G head coach Michael Parker said. "The game, right there."
"[That was] the game-changing moment," Kerr said. "We should've been 1-0 up."
Instead, Duke was down a goal, and the Spartans tacked on another tally in the 56th minute-once again after a failed Blue Devil opportunity. Grella made a move to lose his defender, advanced to the top of the box and fired a shot that just missed wide right.
As with its first goal, UNC-G promptly initiated the counterattack. This time Manyama was on the receiving end, taking a pass from Tim Masters and slipping it past Fitzgerald 51 seconds after Grella's attempt.
And once again, Duke was left lamenting a two-goal swing that put the Spartans in position to complete the upset.
"That was big," Manyama said. "It could've gone either way. Duke could've scored, and then it could've been one all, but we took our chance. Duke had a couple of chances too... but we took our chances better than they did."
At that point, even an increased intensity level could not stave off the end of an up-and-down season for the Blue Devils.
"The urgency wasn't there to begin with, and then we finally got it after we went 2-0 down, and that's almost too late in these kinds of playoff games," Kerr said. "We made life difficult for ourselves."
Despite a flurry of end-of-game shots-including a Pavelid Castaneda attempt that was knocked away by a UNC-G position player in the final two minutes-Duke could not get on the scoreboard.
And so, for the second straight year, the Blue Devils lost in the first rounds of both the ACC and NCAA tournaments, this time to a team that has endured three losing streaks of at least three games.
"They've got some savvy players, and they took advantage of their opportunities," Kerr said. "At the end of the day, they played a good, technically smart game, and they wanted it more."
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