It wasn't a big-name school. It wasn't a big name tournament. It wasn't dramatic. But, in a season light on top-ranked, non-conference competition, it was what exactly what it was supposed to be-a win.
Behind outstanding play in goal by both Atli Knuttson and Jeff Heywood, and the offensive prowess of a red-hot Jay Heaps, the No. 9 Blue Devils (3-0) swept through the Wolfpack adidas Classic in Raleigh this weekend, knocking off Liberty, 3-0, in their final game.
"I thought it was a pretty good tourney to help us prepare for the season," forward Troy Garner said. "We played two teams, two teams that were pretty good and that will give us a good feel for teams we play rest of the season.
"We still have to work on our defense and finishing, but we are improving in all aspects and we will be fine. We're not worried about anything in particular. We've played well in all our games so far, and we keep improving so everyone is pretty happy."
Perhaps with the lone exception of coach John Rennie, who could not have been pleased with the first half of Duke's 3-1 win against Iona on Friday. Despite controlling the match during the opening 45 minutes, the Blue Devils failed to notch a goal and trailed 1-0 to the lowly Gaels at halftime.
"There were a lot of chances we didn't finish," Garner said. "We played fine, in the match, they just played more defensively. They stayed back and went into a shell counter-attacking a lot, which was difficult to play against since we hadn't played against it in a while. We just had to keep playing and start finishing."
Shortly into the second half, Jay Heaps connected on his third goal of the season, tying the game up in the 53rd minute of play. Stephen Pate then picked up a goal and an assist and Garner netted his first goal of the season to put the game out of reach midway through the second half.
It was the All-American Heaps who again started the scoring on Saturday against the Flames, posting his team-high fourth goal in the 24th minute of play off of a Garner assist.
"Jay was just doing what he did best," assistant coach David Smyth said "He's a great offensive player who works really hard trying to get into spaces, and put himself in position to do good things."
Not to be outdone in the Liberty matchup, goalie Atli Knutsson recorded his second shutout of his senior season in a 3-0 victory.
"Atli had a tremendous game, he really made some stellar saves," Smyth said. "Whenever you can put up the clean sheet against a Division I school, you know it's a good performance."
Ali Curtis tallied the other two Blue Devil goals.
"Ali played really well yesterday," Garner said. "We needed a couple [of goals] to break their back and he did that."
The Duke defense played a more physical game than the 33 combined fouls would indicate, shutting down leading scorers Jose Gomez and Gary Ricketts who each posted hat tricks in their season openers.
"Dwayne [Harris] played really well on his guy and so did Kevin [Sakuda]," said Garner, "but a big part was that we didn't give them the ball and didn't let them counter-attack."
However, the story of this weekend for Duke was not entirely about goals and results, but, according to Garner, of a team growing more comfortable with playing together.
"The midfield, forwards and the defense needed to become a better unit," he said. "We weren't comfortable putting the ball in spaces earlier, we played safe. Now we're comfortable playing together and we know where people want the ball, and the defense especially will be able to put it there instead of holding back."
Further complementing the Blue Devils' romp was the rapid development of freshmen Noah Lewkowitz, who racked up a pair of assists against Liberty, and Sakuda.
"Both of them have come along very nicely," Smyth said. "We're very happy with them and we're expecting them to contribute to this program in a big way."
Perhaps the real measuring stick of this tournament will come this weekend as the Blue Devils host the Duke adidas Soccer Classic, and further down the road as Duke ventures into the ACC Tournament.
"This tournament should help us a lot in the long run," Garner said. "We need a couple of games under our belt to be cohesive; practice just doesn't prepare you. We played two games in two days, like we'll have to do again this weekend. We've got no serious problems now, we're getting more and more used to each other and we're just continuing to improve."
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