Late goal flury leaves teams in exhibition tie

The men's soccer team began its exhibition season Sunday evening, earning a 2-2 tie against 19th-ranked Virginia Commonwealth at Koskinen Stadium.

It looked ominous in the early going for the Blue Devils, as VCU got on the board just 34 seconds into the game. VCU defender Hugh MacDonald took a bad clear by the Blue Devils defense and beat senior goalkeeper Justin Trowbridge to give the Rams a 1-0 advantage. Both defenses were solid after that point, and neither team scored again until late in the second half.

Duke freshman Spencer Wadsworth made several VCU defenders miss as he penetrated through the defense before being taken down by a Ram defender in the box to set up a penalty kick. Freshman Tomek Charowski took the kick and hit the upper left 90, beating goalkeeper Rob Szymanik.

“Tomek scored [the goal], but Spencer Wadsworth created that penalty kick all on his own,” Blue Devils coach John Rennie said. “They scored that crazy goal there to start, but we didn’t panic [and] fought hard. A lot of guys got to play, and we got great contributions from the freshmen.”

Less than eight minutes later, Wadsworth again was the playmaker, when he found the 6-foot-7 Paul Dudley. The freshman then fired the ball into the lower left corner of the goal, giving Duke a 2-1 lead.

The Blue Devils became sloppy over the final five minutes of the game, committing three fouls to give the Rams three scoring opportunities. VCU capitalized when the Rams’ Veit Schaidinger beat freshman goalkeeper Justin Papadakis to even the score with just 30 seconds remaining.

“Coming back from a one-nothing deficit against a team of that experience and that caliber is a great result for a very young team,” Rennie said. “For our first game, it was exactly what we needed.”

The Blue Devils will next host Connecticut Friday, Aug. 27 at 7:00 p.m., before opening the regular season on Sept. 1 against Emory & Henry at 7:00 p.m.