Duke continued its undefeated season Wednesday night by topping the Campbell Camels 3-0 in a game that was closer than the score indicated. The Blue Devils have now scored 24 goals and allowed zero in six games, but Clemson will pose new challenges this weekends.
The men’s soccer team (6-0) continued its undefeated season Wednesday night by topping the Campbell Camels 3-0 in a game that was closer than the score indicated. Goalkeeper Justin Trowbridge, a senior co-captain, notched four saves and lifted the team to a school record sixth straight shutout in a game marked by strong defensive play from both sides.
“I think the entire team is playing extremely well defensively,” Trowbridge said. “We came out a little lackadaisical in the first half, [but] Coach [John Rennie] got us going a little bit at halftime and we came out in the second half and got the job done.”
Rennie’s team had many scoring opportunities throughout the game, but Duke could not get on the board until freshman Zachary Pope knocked in a rebound during the 77th minute. It was Pope’s first goal as a Blue Devil. Junior Danny Kramer started the play, beating several Campbell (0-3-1) defenders and crushing a shot that Camel goalkeeper Brandon Kirskey blocked directly onto Pope’s left foot.
“I saw Kramer running down the sideline and there was a lot of open space on the back post,” Pope said. “Kramer hit the shot across, it just deflected off the goalie and the whole goal was open, so I just put it in.”
Pope’s goal opened the floodgates—Duke scored twice more during the remaining 15 minutes. At the 79:30 mark junior Blake Camp fed a ball to Pope down the right sideline, which he crossed to the waiting feet of sophomore Josh Swank. Swank blasted the ball into the net for his team-leading sixth goal of the season.
Nine minutes later, freshman Tomek Charowski recorded his team-best eighth assist when Kramer headed Charowski’s corner kick off of a Campbell defender and into the goal. It was Kramer’s second goal in as many games.
“They played a very defensive game, defend to the death and then counter once in a while,” Rennie said. “It’s usually the case that if you get one [goal] then you’ll get more chances because they’ll press and go forward, which they did, and it opened up their defense.”
During his halftime talk with the team, Rennie appeared to get fired up after a sloppy first half in which Duke was called offside on multiple occasions and allowed the Camels many opportunities to score.
“The chances that [Campbell] got in the first half were a result of us making mistakes,” Rennie said. “We played some bad passes that ended up coming right back at us. We were not very sharp in the first half mentally or technically.”
The Blue Devils again outshot their opponents by a large margin, winning this shooting battle 22-7. Duke came very close to scoring on several occasions before finally getting on the board, including headers by Camp and freshman Paul Dudley that both missed the goal by mere inches.
In the 85th minute, feisty freshman Spencer Wadsworth went down to the ground and was writhing in pain with what appeared at the time to be a serious injury. Wadsworth and Rennie both said after the game that it was only leg cramps and that the freshman will be ready to go for the Blue Devils’ next contest, the ACC opener against the Clemson Tigers.
The game against the Tigers will begin at 7 p.m. Sept. 18 at Koskinen Stadium. Despite having an inexperienced team, Rennie thinks his team is ready to take on the rest of the conference.
“Sure, we’re as ready as we can be,” Rennie said. “As they say, bring it on.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.