This year's men's soccer season featured several exhilarating victories and an NCAA tournament bid, but the team said in the end its inconsistency was its undoing. The talented Duke squad was unable to beat some clearly inferior teams, and was sent home early from both the Atlantic Coast Conference and NCAA tournaments.
The two high points of the Blue Devils' season came during regular season ACC play in the form of home wins over favored opponents.
During its first conference game, the Duke crew played host to national powerhouse Clemson, then the No. 2 men's team in the country. Head coach John Rennie's unranked Blue Devils maintained a 1-1 tie until the second overtime, when All-ACC senior midfielder Trevor Perea scored a golden goal to seal an upset of the Tigers which brought Duke its first national ranking of the season.
The second highlight came two weeks later, when the then-23rd-ranked Duke squad beat archrival and favorite North Carolina in a 1-0 nailbiter on the strength of a goal by junior forward Jordan Cila shortly after halftime.
"Those kind of wins got us our at-large bid to the NCAA tournament," assistant coach Mike Jacobs said.
The rest of the Blue Devils' 11-7-1 regular season was undistinguished, with the team hampered by injuries. The team went 6-4 after the Carolina game, but suffered upsets, most notably losing to Lehigh, 2-1.
"I'd say that it was disappointing in general," Perea said. "When we started off so well, to go on a slide like that was not what we planned."
Injuries played a large role in Duke's lukewarm season, and particularly damaging were injuries to the defenders. Junior Matt Ahumada, sophomore Matt White, seniors Robert Antoniou and Andy Borman, and freshman Ryan Kerlew all missed time with injuries.
"Every time someone got any kind of injury, it was to a defender," Jacobs said. "We had to change the system in the middle of the season because we ran out of people for several games."
The team bowed out of the ACC tournament in the first round, falling to national power Virginia, whose three second-half goals sealed the Blue Devils' fates. The team then received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, but again lost in the first round, this time at home to 25th-ranked William & Mary in a 2-1 heartbreaker.
The team's outlook for next year is good, despite the loss of Perea, Borman, Antoniou, All-ACC midfielder and co-captain Donald McIntosh, and co-captain Scott Noble.
"We're losing some pretty important players, and some leaders," said sophomore keeper Justin Trowbridge.
Next year's team will be led by current juniors Cila and Ahumada, as well as sophomore forward and leading Duke scorer Owoicho Adogwa.
And with the strong team headed back next year and the motivation provided by this year's first-round tournament losses, Duke is in position for an impressive season.
"When we come back, Duke is going to work hard when we're on the field so we can still be proud to put on that jersey," Adogwa said.
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