After getting out to an early 2-0 lead, red cards plagued the Blue Devils. Duke played all of the second half a man down and then the referee ejected a second player with just over ten minutes to go. Virginia scored two quick goals to send the game to an extra period and added a third in overtime for a decisive ACC win.
Four yellow cards, two Blue Devil ejections and 38 combined fouls defined the physical nature of Saturday night’s ACC men’s soccer showdown between No. 19 Duke and No. 3 Virginia.
Down two players because of red cards, the Blue Devils (13-3, 3-3 in the ACC) could not hold off the Cavaliers (13-2, 4-1), who scored three unanswered goals to beat Duke 3-2 in overtime in Charlottesville, Va.
Entering the game in third place in the ACC, the Blue Devils needed to beat Virginia and Wake Forest—their final two conference opponents—to have a chance to win the ACC regular season championship, but that bid came to a close Saturday after a 3-0 start to the conference schedule.
“Trying to play against 11 players with nine guys on the field is hard for any team to do,” said Zachary Pope, who was dealt the team’s second red card in the 79th minute.
Virginia exploited its two-man advantage by posting shot after shot on Duke’s goalie Justin Trowbridge, who accumulated seven saves on the night, five of which came in the second half. The Cavaliers kept crossing the ball searching for an open shot, which finally came in the 86th minute. Paul Johnson and Hunter Freeman assisted John Hartman’s header for Virginia’s first tally, cutting Duke’s two-goal lead in half.
Two and a half minutes later, Freeman was awarded a penalty kick after Blue Devil defenseman Tim Jepson fouled him at the top right of the box. Although some of Duke’s players said the official’s call was questionable, Freeman’s penalty kick leveled the score, forcing the game into overtime.
Six minutes into the extra period, Virginia’s Mike Littlefield scored his first goal of the season. In a similar fashion to the first Cavalier goal of the contest, Will Hall and Freeman crossed the ball twice and Littlefield headed it in for the game winner.
In a matter of 10 minutes, Virginia scored three goals to take the game away from the Blue Devils.
“It took them basically 87 minutes to score a goal on nine or eight people,” Danny Miller said. “I think from a defensive standpoint, we worked our hardest and battled, but they overwhelmed us and finally we broke a little.”
Duke had kept the Cavaliers under control for most of the game despite being a man down since the 42nd minute.
After the game Pope described the incident saying he ran into Freeman, the man he was defending, because the Cavalier stopped suddenly. The fourth official, who was on the sideline, ran onto the field and said Pope had intentionally swung at Freeman. Although the sideline official does not generally call such fouls, the field referee issued Pope a red card, ejecting him from the game with 10 minutes remaining in regulation.
Chris Loftus was ejected in the first half after receiving two yellow cards, but at halftime the Blue Devils were still optimistic with a 2-0 advantage.
“Personally, I thought we could win, even with a man down,” freshman Spencer Wadsworth said. “All we had to do was control the ball like we were doing, not try to score another goal and be content with what we had, a 2-0 lead. We felt like we had the game won, but you can’t really do much when you’re down a couple men. Coming in at halftime we felt like we should win.”
Duke had gained the lead in the first half with goals from Wadsworth and Blake Camp. In the fifth minute, Michael Videira found Wadsworth up the field for a breakaway. As Virginia’s goalie Ryan Burke came out to block the Blue Devils’ shot, Wadsworth kicked the ball off the far post and into the net. In the 28th minute, Camp put a penalty kick in the back of the goal, giving the Blue Devils a 2-0 lead. Duke was able to hold onto that lead for most of the game, in part because Duke controlled the middle of the field.
“I think our midfield played extremely well,” Miller said. “They basically dominated the midfield, and I felt that all of our players were really up to the challenge of the battle that comes in the UVa-Duke game.”
The players, although disappointed and frustrated by the game, were proud of their own efforts against a highly-touted Virginia team.
“We had a game plan coming into the game,” Miller said. “We executed that, and situations that come into the game that you can’t help, like red cards, make you adjust. I think we adjusted pretty well especially with 10 men on the field. They weren’t even getting shots, but with only nine, there’s really nothing you can do because you’re so unbalanced.”
Some of the players said they felt like they had won the game, despite the final score.
“Coach Rennie said after the game that we could be upset, but [we should] come out of it knowing that we had won the game,” Miller recounted. “We outplayed them for 87 minutes, so there’s nothing that we as a team really could have done better. I think that obviously we’re disappointed and upset about the game, but I think we’re confident in knowing that we can basically play with anyone.”
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