The Blue Devils were outraged.
The soccer ball appeared to collide with Luke Hille’s hand in the box, then found Jameson Charles, who set up Martin Vician for a sharp cross into the goal. Less than 15 minutes remained on the clock and North Carolina had just taken a lead on a goal following a hand ball the officials did not call or review. When Trevor Burns drew a foul just moments later, his anger spoke for him, and officials sent him off the field with a red card.
Head coach John Kerr called the hand ball “definitive.”
Then, Vician fouled Adam Luckhurst, putting him on the ground with a tough kick, and drew a yellow card. That one warranted a review, but no change. The rivals resumed play on the grass in Koskinen Stadium, which had instantly become a hostile turf.
That’s what you get in a rivalry game on Friday the 13th. Their 100th matchup, at that.
At home in Koskinen Stadium for only the second time this season, the Blue Devils lost 2-1 to their spookiest Tobacco Road rival. No. 11 North Carolina broke Duke’s 23-game regular-season home undefeated streak, dating back to 2021. The stands were packed, sardine-like, 4,000 people in two shades of blue.
Before Vician’s goal, the Blue Devils were feeling good. Duke earned the first goal of the match after just 11 minutes of game time. Burns and Colton Pleasants took control of the ball in North Carolina’s box, and Adam Luckhurst’s shock of red hair zipped past Tar Heel goalkeeper Andrew Cordes to find a wide-open shot at the goal. The ball rolled in seeming slow-motion into the net, launching the Blue Devils into the far corner of the field as they piled on top of Luckhurst and cheered. The underdogs had a lead.
“They want to play hard for each other,” Kerr said. “They want to get around and defend and attack.”
North Carolina wouldn’t have it. The game quickly took an irate turn, as back-to-back scuffles earned Blue Devil Kamran Acito and Tar Heel Juan Caffaro yellow cards, for dissent and time-wasting, respectively. It went on like this; less than 10 minutes after Luckhurst’s goal, the teams combined for seven fouls — and a referee took a ball to the face. Both teams earned themselves another yellow card before the end of the half.
The equalizer came when a free kick for the Tar Heels gave way to a complicated turn of events. Sam Williams passed to a clump of sky-blue-clad teammates, who shuffled their feet for a moment before Lucas Ross found the ball and sent a clean shot directly into the bottom-center of the goal.
With 13 minutes to play in the first half, Ulfur Bjornsson made his first appearance on the grass. It’s rare for the Icelandic attacker to be left out of the starting line, but a lower-body injury kept him in the reserves until Kerr pulled Luckhurst for a rest. The injury didn’t change his usual style of play; Bjornsson still led Duke’s offensive efforts, striking ferociously at every chance. He took a shot in the first half and set several teammates up for them as well.
Out of the spotlight, at the back of the field, Acito and sophomore Bull Jorgensen stunned. Their defense was nothing short of vicious: Jorgensen threw himself in front of Vician as the last-gasp chance before graduate goalkeeper Wessel Speel to prevent a North Carolina goal. Their defense became even tougher after the hand-ball fiasco.
“Bull stepped back there from the midfield position,” Kerr said. “He's done really well the past two games, I thought he was stand-out again tonight.”
Controversy first came to Koskinen when game officials reviewed what had looked like a Duke goal. Luke Thomas set up Drew Kerr for a shot that the junior slammed at the goal — only for it to ricochet off the top bar and land close to the goalline. After an extended review, however, game officials ruled that the ball had not entered the goal.
Five minutes later, Hille’s hand touched the ball, and the tone changed.
“It was disappointing, especially when the players know that it was a hand ball, so they're all distraught,” Kerr said.
Duke and North Carolina fired back and forth in the final minutes. Then Ruben Mesalles got hit with a foul. Bjornsson lined up for the free kick, and sent it in a perfect arc, on-target, to the goal. But Cordes caught it. No goal.
“That’s a typical Duke-Carolina game,” Kerr said.
The Blue Devils were the underdogs on the field Friday night. They had already lost this season, while the Tar Heels are undefeated; Duke also isn’t ranked, while North Carolina sits at No. 11. But the underdog narrative didn’t fit with Duke’s game. The Blue Devils kept control of the ball all night, sending it towards Cordes with intentional passes and intuitive movement. Jorgensen and Acito played the defense Kerr has been asking for all season; Luckhurst and Bjornsson did their parts.
Sometimes, it’s just bad luck.
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Sophie Levenson is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.