Adam Luckhurst had had an uncharacteristically quiet night. Notre Dame keeper Collin Travasos had deflected his single shot on goal, and Kerr was moving him on and off the field all night.
Then Luckhurst took a foul from Travasos in the box, which earned him a penalty kick. That penalty kick earned him a goal; Luckhurst’s ball eluded Travasos and his night was quiet no more. The Blue Devils had a 3-0 lead with seven minutes to play.
No. 5 Duke welcomed Notre Dame for its senior night celebration and last game of the regular season in Koskinen Stadium. Joined by the Duke band, the Blue Devils delivered an astonishing 4-0 performance Friday night over the team that lost in the finals of the College Cup last year.
“For me, it was a very emotional night. I've played so many games with this team now, so we feel like a family,” senior captain Ruben Mesalles said after the game. “I see my parents out there on the field — it meant a lot, brought a tear to my face. It was all good, and then the result made it so much sweeter.”
Tensions ran particularly high Friday night, as both teams battled for their best chances in the ACC Tournament, which starts next week. No. 22 Stanford posed the trickiest threat for the Blue Devils (10-2-4, 4-1-3 in the ACC) — depending on the outcome of its late-night game against Cal, the Cardinal would finish a spot above or below Duke in ACC standings. Goal differentials for the two teams looked to be the deciding factor in seeding.
“Knowing that Stanford’s gonna play later, we wanted to make it more difficult for them,” head coach John Kerr said. “We’ve now forced them to score four or five goals.”
The job was to keep the ball away from Matthew Roou. The Notre Dame senior is the only person in the ACC with more goals on the season than Duke sophomore Ulfur Bjornsson; Roou leads the conference in shots, goals and points per game. Mesalles and Kamran Acito threw themselves in the way of Fighting Irish strikers, moving with a determined aggression that got the job done. Senior Sintayehu Clements, filling in for a injured Bull Jorgensen, started for just the second time in his career to hold down center back while his two captains guarded the wings.
“He did a great job tonight,” Kerr said of Clements. “He did a great job against Longwood on Tuesday … he was solid defensively. He didn't make many mistakes at all. Really proud of his effort.”
On the few occasions that Notre Dame’s offense eluded Duke’s defensive trio, graduate goalkeeper Wessel Speel stepped up. He made three saves in the first half, most noticeably catching a close-range bullet from the visiting team’s KK Baffour right at the end of the period.
“We started off with heavy defensive pressure on them. That was the goal from the beginning, to put them under pressure,” Kerr said. “If we defend like that — that’s championship defending.”
The only moment in which Duke’s defense looked unprepared came with under 20 minutes to play, when an Irish attacker took an up-close gander at Speel’s goal. The striker might have cracked Notre Dame’s standstill had his ball not narrowly missed the right post. Still, the attempt began a nervous period of Fighting Irish control: Notre Dame (7-4-5, 3-3-2 in the ACC) kept the ball on Duke’s side of the field, earning two corner kicks and one throw-in to get the ball dangerously close to Speel a handful of times. At the visiting team’s best moment, senior midfielder Bryce Boneau sent a shot directly at the top of the goal. If it hadn’t been for a one-handed swat by Speel, the Fighting Irish might have shrunken Duke’s precious goal differential.
Offensively, graduate midfielder Colton Pleasants fired up the field early on, sending a long-range cross from right to left that arched way over Travasos’ head. With 32:40 left to play in the first, Duke took a 1-0 lead. Junior midfielder Drew Kerr looked as if he might double his team’s advantage in a fast break under 10 minutes later, but his ball landed just wide of the goal’s left post. Still, before half of the first period was over, Duke had taken three shots, and by the end of the frame, it had taken seven. First-half production is no small thing for the Blue Devils, who have only recently proven their ability to be successful in early minutes.
The Blue Devils had played a little less than 14 minutes of the second half when Koskinen Stadium saw Pleasants on the ground, clutching his shin in apparent agony. Still, he managed to get back up, and just moments later, took the ball speedily down the middle of the field. Pleasants found Kerr open out wide, and the sophomore wasted no time in crossing to Bjornsson, open in center field just feet from the goal area. In it went. The Blue Devils, as usual, piled on top of their Icelandic teammate, celebrating the new two-goal advantage.
“I just think we were really up for this game,” Kerr said. “We were excited about trying to get a result, but also trying to score as many goals as we could.”
Notre Dame had plenty to be angry about after Luckhurst made Duke’s third goal of the night. Then, there was more. Baffour drew his second yellow card of the night, which the referee turned into a red when the junior midfielder dissented. The clock stopped for minutes as Baffour refused to leave the field. When he eventually relented, Duke had six minutes to play and one man more than the Irish. The Blue Devils made sure to take advantage of that.
Kerr’s late-game substitution of graduate student Jack Zugay proved a clever one. Junior striker Jose Ortega took control of the ball on the right side of the field and passed it to Luckhurst. He could have taken a shot, but this is a team of brothers, and Luckhurst saw grad transfer Zugay, who had never scored as a Blue Devil, standing open on his side. His pass became an assist as Duke’s lead grew to 4-0.
“We had a goal tonight, and we absolutely smashed it,” Mesalles said. “Now just waiting on results, but it's all looking good so far. I'm so proud of this team, so proud of this performance. It's a really special night.”
The Blue Devils spent the rest of their Friday night celebrating their seniors with a banquet. After dinner, they got the news that Stanford conceded a 1-0 loss to Cal — only the second conference win for the Golden Bears this season. Because top-seeded Pittsburgh gets a first-round bye, No. 3-seed Duke will host No. 14-seed Virginia Tech at home in Koskinen Stadium Wednesday in the first round of the ACC tournament.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
Sophie Levenson is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.