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Duke men's soccer opens ACC tournament Wednesday at Notre Dame

<p>Graduate student Ryan Thompson and the Blue Devils are hoping to keep their season alive Wednesday at Notre Dame.</p>

Graduate student Ryan Thompson and the Blue Devils are hoping to keep their season alive Wednesday at Notre Dame.

With the No. 91 RPI in the country heading into the postseason, the Blue Devils know their next game could be their last with only 32 teams making it to the NCAA tournament.

But after upsetting two top-10 teams during the regular season, Duke hopes its sense of desperation can carry it to a magical ACC tournament run.

The 10th-seeded Blue Devils will travel to South Bend, Ind., to take on No. 7 seed Notre Dame in the opening round of the ACC tournament Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Alumni Stadium. Although Duke won just two ACC games in the regular season, one of those wins came against the then-No. 4 Fighting Irish in double overtime Oct. 21 2-1 thanks to two goals from freshman Brandon Williamson.

After knocking off Elon then falling in the 87th minute at then-No. 17 Virginia, the Blue Devils will look to pick up where they left off against Notre Dame Wednesday to extend their season.

“I keep saying, if you believe, then we can make it happen. We’ve got a really good team,” Duke head coach John Kerr said after his team knocked off the Fighting Irish. “We were playing against an excellent team, so to hang with those guys and keep our poise towards the end was very impressive.”

As Duke (7-7-2) prepares for its rematch with Notre Dame, it will look to freshmen Suniel Veerakone and Max Moser to generate the chances that sparked the Blue Devil offense at times during the season. Both players are among the team leaders in assists, and have had success playing crosses into the box from wide angles toward juniors Brian White and Cameron Moseley.

Moser set up Duke’s game-winner against Notre Dame (10-5-2) in the teams’ first meeting by giving Williamson enough space to beat goalkeeper Chris Hubbard, who allows just 0.6 goals per game.

“Max Moser is a very good crosser of the ball, and I’m disappointed we didn’t get more opportunities from his crosses [last game against Notre Dame] because he put some really awesome balls in front,” Kerr said. “Suniel is very talented and can take the ball forward into dangerous areas.”

Although the Blue Devils played arguably their best game of the season against the Fighting Irish during the regular season, Duke’s offense was inconsistent in 16 regular-season games. The Blue Devils scored multiple goals against Power-5 competition twice and were shut out three times, and another up-and-down effort like the one that cost Duke against Virginia in a 1-0 loss to end the regular season would almost certainly end the Blue Devils’ season Wednesday.

Luckily for Duke, graduate student goalkeeper Robert Moewes has given the team a chance in almost every game by coming up with clutch saves against some of the nation’s top offenses.

The Dortmund, Germany, native had seven stops when the Blue Devils upset Notre Dame and finished the regular season ranked second in the ACC with 3.9 per contest.

Duke might need another heroic effort from its goalkeeper against a dangerous Fighting Irish offense that averages 1.8 tallies per game. Forwards Jon Gallagher and Brandon Aubrey lead the way for Notre Dame and combined for 19 goals during the regular season. Gallagher is also the team’s leading assist man with six on the season—including the dish that set up an early Fighting Irish goal in their first game against the Blue Devils.

“They’re a potent team,” Kerr said. “We did well to block as many crosses as we could, we did well to stay with our runners and Robert did excellent when he had to come up with some big saves.”

Although Kerr’s team is coming off a loss, it actually carries more momentum into the postseason than Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish started the season 10-1-2 to establish themselves as a national title contender, but have dropped four straight games since Oct. 11.

Duke will look to hand Notre Dame another setback to keep its season alive, with the winner of Wednesday’s game traveling to take on No. 2 seed Wake Forest Sunday.

Alex Sanfilippo contributed reporting.

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