The Blue Devils lost their most productive offensive player before the game even started Thursday night, leaving fans wondering who would pick up the scoring slack. Senior Cole Grossman answered the call, taking matters into his own hands after Duke trailed early.
The midfielder scored a pair of second-half goals and led the Blue Devils past Coastal Carolina 2-1 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Koskinen Stadium.
“We just weren’t going to be denied tonight in the second half,” head coach John Kerr said. “We went out there, and we knew we just had to keep our discipline defensively and keep attacking them.”
The Blue Devils elected to replace the suspended Finley up top with Grossman, but Duke seemed deflated in the opening stages of the contest. The team suffered another setback when defender Matthew Thomas went down with an injury in the first minute of play. Thomas ran into the sideline fence chasing a ball and dislocated his shoulder, missing the rest of the first half.
The Blue Devils could only string a handful of passes together, even though they were clearly the more talented team in terms of ball skills and passing. Coastal Carolina, meanwhile, resorted to the long ball, hoping to pick out the heads of 6-foot-1 Joe Anderson and 6-foot-3 Pedro Ribeiro.
The Chanticleers used their size to their advantage when they scored the game’s first goal in the 23rd minute off the head of senior midfielder Ross Kelly. Kristoffer Sandtroen sent a perfect cross to the center of the box from the right wing after running onto a through ball, and Kelly beat the Duke defense, nodding the ball past goalkeeper James Belshaw.
“I think we actually were pretty flat until they scored,” Grossman said. “Then I felt like it was just an absolute domination.”
Indeed, the Blue Devils had 10 more shots than Coastal Carolina in the first half, but only two of them were on target. Sophomore center back Andrew Wenger—the ACC Defensive Player of the Year—provided the most fruitful attacking opportunities for Duke. He made stellar runs through the heart of the midfield, easily maneuvering past defenders, but all of his six first-half shots went wide of goal.
“We recognized when we scouted Coastal that there were some gaps there for [Wenger] to exploit, and he’s such a good player and makes good decisions on the ball,” Kerr said.
Despite trailing by a goal, Duke went into the locker room at halftime “extremely confident,” according to Grossman, and the Blue Devils were finally able to translate that attitude into dominant play when the final period began. Thomas recovered from his injury and returned to the back line, contributing vital pressure up the left side of the field. Duke quickly began to stockpile possession and kept the ball in their offensive third of the field for much of the half.
“We were resilient tonight,” Kerr said. “We came out in the second half with some real pride and some real energy. We worked the angles right, we got in the box and we got some good service.”
Grossman leveled the score in the 77th minute when he drilled a free kick from a few yards outside the goal box into the back of the net. He sent the shot over the wall and curled it away from the keeper. Goalie Scott Angevine could only watch as the ball tracked just inside the near post and settled into the side netting.
The senior wasn’t finished yet, scoring the game-winning goal just over six minutes later. Freshman Jonathan Aguirre found Grossman on the fastbreak with a cross-field through ball that covered almost half of the pitch. Grossman beat his marker and found himself one-on-one with Angevine. He calmly slotted the ball past the keeper and burst into a celebratory run up the sideline, pumping his fist to ignite the crowd.
Although the loss of Finley provided Grossman with a prime opportunity to shine, he did not feel pressure to carry the scoring load. Nonetheless, it was only fitting that one of team’s senior leaders carried Duke to victory with the season on the line.
“It’s not like I went into it thinking, ‘I have to be the one to score,’” Grossman said. “I’d do anything to help anybody score, but tonight it was my night to score goals.”
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