For 66 minutes yesterday, the third-ranked men's soccer team (10-1, 2-1 in the ACC) battled it out with archrival North Carolina (5-4, 0-3), with neither team scoring a single goal. Then Duke coach John Rennie put freshman midfielder Scott Noble on the field at striker.
The reason: to give still-injured Ali Curtis a rest.
The result: serendipity.
Four minutes later, Noble broke the impasse, heading in a corner kick from midfielder Noah Lewkowitz to light up the scoreboard for the first time all afternoon. It proved to be the game winner as Duke went on to win, 2-0, yesterday afternoon at Duke Soccer Stadium. The shutout was the Blue Devils' seventh of the season.
"It was definitely intense, which I'm not really accustomed to thus far, but I went in to do my job," Noble said. "The ball was put on my head by Lewkowitz, and I just went up for it."
During the first half, UNC kept the pressure on the Blue Devils, maintaining possession throughout most of the period and firing shot after shot at goalkeeper Atli Knutsson.
Duke, on the other hand, seemed to have difficulties keeping the ball on the offensive end of the field. And when they did gain control, the Blue Devils logged near-miss after near-miss.
"Maybe we could do one thing better, that is to settle into the game quicker," Knutsson said. "Sometimes it takes 15, 20 minutes to get our flow. I think we're dealing with it, but it's something we could work harder at."
While Duke held
Barely able to put any weight on his right leg, he was assisted off the field by two of his teammates. Harris, who exited the locker room on crutches, is expected to be out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.
At the start of the second half, though, things began to turn in the Blue Devils' favor. Duke began to hold its own offensively, keeping Carolina goaltender William Woodroffe on his toes with seven shots.
One reason for this shift in momentum was the entrance of Curtis into the game. Curtis, who has spent the last five games on the bench due to injury, took to the field when the second half began. The sophomore striker almost immediately made his presence known, taking Duke's first shot after intermission, which Woodroffe saved. The Blue Devils began taking more chances, but they still couldn't capitalize on them.
"It doesn't matter if their team's having a bad year or anything," forward Troy Garner said of the rivalry between Duke and UNC. "They're just going to come and play this game as hard as possible. It's just like the basketball game; even if one team's having a bad year, the other's going to come out and play hard because they want to beat that team just as bad, if not worse."
What ended up mattering perhaps even more than Curtis' return was Duke's overall substitution pattern in the second half. During the first period, the Blue Devils only put two subs in, one to replace the fallen Harris. In the second half, though, they doubled their substitution rate. The influx of fresh Blue Devils on the field exhausted the Tar Heels, enabling Duke to take charge.
"We wore them down a little bit," Rennie said of Duke's play in the second half. "We had possession of the ball, and they were doing a lot of chasing, and that's where they got worn down. I think that's what happened on the corner kick [that led to Noble's game-winning goal]. We had fresh legs and were very aggressive for possession of the ball."
After Noble's goal, UNC managed no more than a few near-misses. Duke's quest for an insurance goal was similarly thwarted-for almost 15 minutes, that is.
In the 85th minute of the contest, Garner hammered the ball into the back of the net off a feed from Noble. Woodroffe dove for the ball but missed it and could do no more then watch it fly by.
"In the second half they got a little tired, and we were able to spread them out," Rennie said. "Troy Garner's goal was a perfect example. In the first half, probably one or two of their defenders would have tackled him.
"But they got a little tired in the second half, so we were able to use our quickness and keep possession and take a lot of scoring chances."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.