Duke was unable to capitalize on any scoring momentum, as Virginia took the game, 3-1.
CARY — Every time things started going right for the Duke men’s soccer team, rival Virginia found a way to halt the Blue Devils’ momentum.
The fourth-seeded Cavaliers (15-4) won a physical contest over fifth-seeded Duke 3-1 Wednesday in the first round of the ACC Tournament.
Virginia outplayed Duke (14-5) for much of the game, but did not capitalize on its advantage until there were 27 minutes remaining. At the top-right corner of the 18-yard box, UVa sophomore Ian Holder wove through a crowd and slipped a pass between two defenders. He found teammate Mike Littlefield all alone in front of the goal, and Littlefield banged a shot past a diving Justin Trowbridge to give Virginia a lead it would not relinquish.
The Blue Devils struggled early and only began to click midway though the second half.
“As this sport would have it, when we started playing better and going forward in the second half is when they scored,” Duke head coach John Rennie said. “We played much better in the second half, but you need to finish your chances. They did a good job of finishing the chances they got in the second half, that’s for sure.”
The Cavaliers doubled their one-goal lead two-and-a-half minutes later when David Rosenbaum stormed down the right side past freshman sweeper Tim Jepson and threaded the ball to a racing Jeremy Barlow in front of the goal. Barlow completed the well-executed play by firing at point-blank range and hitting the back of the net. With two assists Rosenbaum was a force throughout the game.
“David Rosenbaum is just starting to come into his own,” Virginia head coach George Gelnovatch said. “He wasn’t even traveling with us in the first half of the year, but he came in. He was fresh, he was fast, he added something.”
Although Duke was down 2-0 with about 20 minutes to go, the game was far from over. Freshman Michael Videira went down hard after going for a header and drew a foul to earn a free kick in the UVa end. Sophomore Kyle Helton took the indirect kick and sent it across to a pack of players on the other side. Blake Camp emerged and deflected a header into the right corner of the goal, cutting the lead to one and giving the Blue Devils a pulse.
After Trowbridge proceeded to save two consecutive Rosenbaum shots, effectively keeping Duke in contention, the Blue Devils went on the attack. In the 73rd minute, Duke earned another free kick near the Virginia goal. Helton again flew the ball past the far post, where sophomore Chris Loftus headed it back toward the front of the goal above the head of freshman Tomek Charowski. The freshman nearly converted the difficult attempt, but his header skimmed off the post and ricocheted out of bounds.
The Blue Devils never had a another chance to level the score, as the Cavaliers came right back and put the game away on a header by Holder in the 77th minute. This turn of events epitomized the back-and-forth play.
Rennie said he thought inexperience was a factor in his team’s inconsistency. No current Duke player has ever been past the ACC quarterfinals, and the Blue Devils rely on a slew of freshmen in key positions.
“I think that makes a difference this time of year,” Rennie said.
Camp, a First Team All-ACC midfielder, did not believe that youth hampered his team’s play.
“Our guys gained a lot of experience over the season,” Camp said. “We’ve had to adjust already during the season so I really don’t think that played much of a factor.”
The physical nature of this contest further intensified the matchup as the teams combined for five yellow cards and 44 fouls. A lot of this animosity stemmed from the previous match between the teams, a 3-2 Cavaliers overtime victory in which two Blue Devils were ejected.
“I’m sure Duke wanted a piece of us because last time the game got a little crazy at our place, and a lot of weird things happened,” Gelnovatch said.
Duke will now wait for a likely at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament.
“Certainly there’s a lesson learned there,” Rennie said. “It’s a tournament, and the intensity and the competition is going to be there no matter who you’re playing.”
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