Through 90 minutes of an evenly-matched, back-and-forth battle at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C., Duke fell to Notre Dame 2-0.
It took until the last minute for Duke to break through, but when your opponent isn’t scoring, you only need a single goal to win.
Through 90 minutes of toil and trouble, battling against a hungry Clemson team at Historic Riggs Field in Clemson, S.C., Duke ultimately bested the Tigers 1-0 in the semifinals of the ACC tournament.
With a whopping 30 fouls, six yellow cards, two red cards and one penalty kick, both teams clawed at each other for any scrap of advantage in the nailbiter.
Four members of Duke men's soccer have received All-ACC honors, including ACC Offensive Player, Midfielder and Freshman of the Year for sophomores Thorleifur Ulfarsson, Peter Stroud and freshman Shakur Mohammed, respectively. Freshman Ruben Mesalles was also named to the All-ACC Freshman team.
The NCAA tournament selection committee revealed the 2021 bracket on Monday, with Duke receiving a 1-seed.
The ACC announced its All-ACC teams Friday afternoon and, to little surprise to anyone, Duke freshman phenom Michelle Cooper led the way.
Becoming ACC Coastal co-champions after a 2020-21 season that saw them finish with the second worst overall win percentage in the conference has been quite the journey for the Blue Devils, and Senior Night gave them the opportunity to reflect on that. While there are only three seniors and one graduate student on this year’s roster, a short but sweet pregame ceremony set the tone for a night that would be decided by dedication and leaving it all on the field.
A lot can change in 13 seconds.
Even before the start of kickoff, the environment was muted—it was a dreary, rainy afternoon with more clouds in the sky than fans in the stands. And while the Blue Devils’ performance mirrored that environment, the talent gap was too much for the Cardinals to overcome, and Duke came out on top with a 1-0 victory Thursday at Lynn Stadium.
Coming into this campaign, the expectations were simple—just be better than last year. While they were better than their 4-10-3 record would imply, the Blue Devils were an almost-there team, one that couldn’t quite finish.
With a stunning amount of awareness for anyone, but especially a freshman, Michelle Cooper let the ball roll right past her, where it found a wide-open Tess Boade at the top of the box, who sent a rocket toward the center of the goal.
No. 6 Duke overcame the stylistic choices of the umpires to notch a crucial 1-0 win over No. 15 Notre Dame on Thursday, effectively clinching an ACC tournament berth.
“We do have a tough ending to the week, heading out to South Bend,... and we're going to continue to soldier on and learn from the mistakes that we did make tonight, and also continue to grow and develop some of our things that we're doing quite well,” head coach John Kerr said. “We will be the underdog, which is nice because we were on top of the table and everyone wants to shoot you down...so it's gonna be a fun opportunity for us and we're looking forward to it.”
It all comes down to this. After 13 games of mostly elite soccer, the Blue Devils’ tournament prospects come down to just a pair of games.
After suffering its first loss of the season last week at Pittsburgh, Duke entered Friday night’s matchup standing at No. 9 on the poll.
Last Sunday, In the span of six hours of real time and almost eight of game time, Duke’s hopes went from dour to dire to blight, then rinsed and repeated. Friday, Duke’s visit to Winston-Salem, N.C. was little more than a tune-up.
This one marked Duke’s first victory away from home since their historic win against North Carolina and gave them the three points in the conference standings necessary to get them into the rapidly upcoming ACC Tournament.
It was definitely a game to remember for head coach Robbie Church who registered his 100th ACC win as the Duke women's soccer head coach.
Kerr said, “These guys want to play for each other. They want to play for the school, and they want to play for the program, and most of all they want to play for each other. Everyone's working hard every day to get better and we have a lot of fun while we're doing it, so… this is a little bit of a hiccup but a worthwhile growth opportunity.”
