Overview
Last season ended for the Blue Devils with a brutal battle against a tall, strong and veteran Western Michigan team that knocked Duke out in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The loss followed a similar one to Clemson in the ACC tournament quarterfinals. This season, head coach John Kerr looks to fill his own roster with tall, strong and veteran talent.
In the wake of several significant departures — senior captains Nick Pariano, Antino Lopez, Lewis McGarvey and Amir Daley included — finding those veterans seemed a tall task. Kerr, however, has taken full advantage of his ability to recruit graduate transfers, such that his roster may have more veteran leaders now than it ever has. Graduate students comprise 10 of Kerr’s 32 players, and only two of them — Cameron Kerr and Luke Thomas — are returners to Duke.
“Certainly we're going to miss the guys that just left our program very much, but we've done a good job recruiting, and we feel that we've brought in some really talented guys to fill their shoes,” Kerr told The Chronicle.
Wessel Speel, a transfer from Hofstra, proved in preseason exhibition matches against Coastal Carolina, UNC Asheville and Georgetown that he’ll be Duke’s starting and leading goalkeeper for the season. Adam Luckhurst, Niclas Wittur and Colton Pleasants will likely join their fellow graduate transfer in the starting formation.
Duke has replenished its lost talent with new faces, but that doesn’t mean Kerr plans to replace what he already has. The team has named Thomas, senior Ruben Mesalles and junior Kamran Acito as captains, identifying some of its strongest players on various points of the field.
“We have a good camaraderie about us, some really good kids that are hungry,” Kerr said. “We’re always excited this time of year, but I feel good about the group and how we're meshing together, on and off the field.”
Additionally, star striker Ulfur Bjornsson enters just his sophomore year with the Blue Devils, where growth and development should allow him to improve on the 21.7% shot rate he held as a rookie — the team’s highest.
The boys in blue will not, however, take on this season with all the familiarity that should come with so much veteran talent. Game play kicks off Thursday at San Diego, followed by a Sunday matchup against UC San Diego in La Jolla, Calif. At the end of August, the Blue Devils will play Grand Canyon at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, instead of at home in Koskinen. Two days later, Duke takes on Division III Averett, a new foe altogether. When ACC competition begins, the team has to manage trips to Charlottesville, Va., and Stanford, Calif., in the span of two weeks.
“We'll take each game as it comes and move forward,” Kerr said. But there will be little rest for this year’s crop of soccer players. -Sophie Levenson
Returning players to watch: Ulfur Bjornsson and Kamran Acito
On the attacking end, Bjornsson is a force to be reckoned with. The sophomore forward racked up an impressive 10 goals last season — including, famously, a hat trick against Howard and a four-game scoring streak — and was named to the All-ACC freshman team and second team. Pariano and Forster Ajago are off to the big leagues, so Bjornsson’s ability to score big and attack will be crucial to this team.
Acito, once the star-studded ACC Freshman of the Year, is now a seasoned third-year team captain. The Manhattan-bred player has never been a top scorer — he only scored two goals last season — but he has continued to be an immensely valuable defender, tallying over 3,000 minutes of play-time in just two years. Acito is consistent and strong on the defensive line, and with fellow starting defenders Lopez and Daley graduated, his strength and experience on the field are essential in this upcoming season. -Lilah Gorfain
New players to watch: Wessel Speel and Adam Luckhurst
Hofstra transfer Speel will be replacing Julian Eyestone in the Duke net this season following the All-ACC goalkeeper’s signing with Brentford.
“[Speel is] going to give us a lot of experience. He's played 75 Division I games, been in three NCAA tournaments, and his team won three conference titles,” Kerr said. “He's an experienced winner, which is something that is going to be very useful for us.”
The 6-foot-7 Dutchman comes to Durham for his fifth year of collegiate soccer after four seasons at Hofstra and will serve as a valuable veteran to hold down the Blue Devil back line.
On the offensive end, the South Carolina transfer Luckhurst will bring fresh firepower to Duke’s goal scoring efforts. The graduate forward was team captain for his senior season in Columbia, S.C., and led his squad in goals during his final two years with the program. Racking up a combined three goals against UNC Asheville and Georgetown in this year’s preseason, the Santa Barbara, Calif., native foreshadowed the offensive capabilities that he will bring to the 2024 Blue Devils.
“He’s going to score goals for us,” Kerr said. -Colton Schwabe
Most anticipated matchup: vs. North Carolina, Sept. 13
When Duke and North Carolina face off in any form or context, the meeting tends to accumulate all sorts of hype and eager anticipation, and this year’s men’s soccer showdown between the neighboring programs will be no different.
In last season’s matchup, an eleventh-ranked Blue Devil squad marched into Chapel Hill to eventually lose 2-1 to the unranked Tar Heels. The match featured 11 bookings and included the ejection of both Kerr and North Carolina midfielder Quenzi Huerman. So following the sound of the final whistle, the Kerr-less Blue Devils walked off the pitch in disappointment, likely developing plans for revenge. The Tar Heels went on to lose in the ACC Championship in penalties to the Clemson Tigers, the 2023 season’s eventual National Champions, before making it all the way to the quarterfinals in the NCAA tournament.
North Carolina’s performance towards the second half of the 2023 season eventually earned them the No. 6 ranking in this year’s pre-season poll, 14 positions higher than No. 20 Duke. And on September’s Friday-the-13th gameday, the rivalry game comes back to Durham. -Schwabe
Best-case scenario
Last year featured a disappointing end to a disappointing season, as the Blue Devils ducked out of the NCAA tournament in the second round. In an effort to recoup the sizable positional losses incurred at season’s end, Duke sought to inject experience into the roster. Eight transfers, headlined by Speel and Luckhurst, will provide instant impact as the Blue Devils aim to hit the ground running. Although a far cry from last season’s top 5 preseason ranking, they still find themselves firmly in the country’s top 25. Duke will have to grind out some tough fixtures, but the talent is there. If the team can work through inevitable growing pains, the new faces will synergize with an already competitive lineup of returners. From there, the Blue Devils will be a tough squad to beat at both the conference and national levels. -Luke Rinaldi
Worst-case scenario
As strong as Duke’s recruiting class may be, replacing All-American caliber talent is no small feat. Be it Eyestone, Ajago or Pariano, the Blue Devils enter this year missing several of last season’s starters. This will do them no favors against the rest of the ACC, a conference which boasts a whopping 10 schools in the preseason top 25. Duke will be forced to compete at the highest level all season, with fixtures against six higher-ranked conference opponents. As such, a few slip-ups here and there could see the Blue Devils fall out of ACC contention, or even cause them to miss out on a national tournament berth. -Rinaldi
Predictions
Levenson: 12-3-1, ACC finalists, loss in the NCAA second round
Gorfain: 12-3-1, ACC finalists, loss in the NCAA quarterfinal
Schwabe: 11-3-2, ACC semifinalists, loss in the NCAA second round
Rinaldi: 10-3-3, ACC semifinalists, loss in NCAA quarterfinal
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Sophie Levenson is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.