CHAPEL HILL -- Everyone remembers junior high when they screamed their teenage angst out to some solid Green Day. Perhaps the band's lyric, "I got no motivation/Where is my motivation?" would have helped the Blue Devils figure out what was going on during stretches of last night's match.
It seemed as though Duke was lolligagging around the field with no sense of purpose until the all important moment hit: North Carolina scored. There was the squad's necessary motivation. Not the fact that their arch-rival Tar Heels stood across the field. That could not muster up the Blue Devils' attention, nor could a 2-4-1 record entering the contest. Only when sky-blue jerseys were prancing around the field after a Tar Heel headed a ball over goalkeeper Justin Trowbridge's head did Duke turn on the juice. They finally began to string passes together, and started looking like a cohesive unit.
Perhaps starting four freshman in a crucial ACC matchup was not ideal for sprinting out of the gate at Fetzer Field. Placing senior captain Jordan Cila and junior Nigi Adogwa on the bench for the start of the match--and nearly the first 30 minutes--was apparently a strategic move.
Head coach John Rennie stuck with his freshmen even after the Blue Devils were down 1-0, and it paid off. Chris Loftus, the first-year player who started ahead of Cila, netted his first career goal after Duke got their act together.
"We went out with a lineup we haven't played yet," Cila said. "I didn't start, but it was strictly tactical. We tried something different.... It took them to score to wake us up, and then we finally battled back."
The same core of freshman who started the game were the guys who fought back to a 1-1 tie. Elder statesman Cila and Adogwa did not enter the game until freshman Loftus beat goalkeeper Ford Williams with a nifty right-footed shot.
Even after gaining momentum for an eight-minute span before its first goal, Duke turned off the engine after equalizing the score. The Tar Heels began controlling the flow of the game and made the Blue Devils resort to a kick-and-run tactic instead of playing on the ground. Rennie's team seemed to feel a sense of comfort when the score was knotted. After Andrew Rhea volleyed a ball dangerously close to Trowbridge's net, the Blue Devils returned with a short surge.
Then came more motivation. After a Duke foul, Tar Heel Ray Fumo lined up for a free kick outside the 18-yard box and rifled a shot on goal. According to Cila and most of his teammates, a Tar Heel redirected the shot with his arm to beat Trowbridge for a 2-1 lead.
"We're just not getting the breaks," Cila said. "Their second goal was a hand ball. Everyone on the field could see it except for three people, and those three people are the only ones that can call it." Whatever the case, Duke responded yet again with a burst of fire that should have existed to open the match. Again, Duke scored the equalizer and followed it with two yellow cards. This time, the Blue Devils were playing for keeps, not a draw.
In the end it took a miraculous free kick in double overtime to send the squad back to Durham with a loss. Maybe if Duke had focused its efforts on winning in two critical stages of the match, the Tar Heels would not have been frolicking around campus after the game. The Blue Devils need to look in the mirror and make sure their motivation is not to come back in a game, but rather to let their opponent try that task.
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