The game had stumbled on for 97 scoreless minutes, two rivals entrenched in a battle of attrition for college soccer's most prestigious conference championship and the top seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament. And then, faster than a Zinedine Zidane headbutt, it was over.
That's how quickly Mike Grella can change a game.
Grella's stunning blast from 35 yards out-taken with a defender draped on his side and with virtually no angle on the net-abruptly ended last season's tense and evenly-matched ACC Championship battle against then-No. 1 Wake Forest.
"He didn't have a great shooting window," head coach John Rennie said. "He didn't have a real open look at the goal, the keeper was in good position, but he just did the unexpected."
In his two years at Duke, Grella has made a habit of doing the unexpected. There was the deciding penalty kick in the ACC title game against North Carolina his freshman season, and the two spectacular goals in the regular season victory over the Demon Deacons.
"He knows, to be a goal-scorer, you can't just do what's expected and what's obvious," Rennie said. "You have to do something a little different, and that's what he does. He can make something out of nothing."
The forward that was named National High School Player of the Year by the NSCAA in 2004 certainly is used to being a playmaker. His lifetime of success on the pitch has bred a confidence that makes him believe he can do anything on the field-like beat a red-hot goaltender for the ACC title from over three first downs away.
"It takes a tremendous amount of confidence and a certain amount of arrogance to believe you can score goals that way, that you can make something happen that is unexpected and that will work," Rennie said.
Grella said he agrees that a forward needs to have that kind of attitude if he wants to put the ball in the back of the net.
"It does [take a certain attitude to be a forward]," he said. "You have to have that killer instinct about you, and you have to finish the chances when they come."
And now, after providing the deciding points in back-to-back ACC Championships, Grella has made witnesses out of his coach and his teammates.
"You have to believe in a player like Mike Grella," Rennie said. "He's not going to be as consistent as you might want a player to be for 90 minutes, but you know that any time he gets a chance, a goal can be scored. You'll work harder for that kind of a player because you believe in him. He has the capacity to be just absolutely brilliant on the field."
Grella reciprocates that belief back to the whole team, which he expects to exceed last year's lofty accomplishments.
"I don't want to set any marks," Grella said. "But we can win the whole thing without a lot of problems. If we just stay compact and organized and work hard, I don't see us losing."
Grella makes it sound easy, but then again, he's made just about everything seem that way. And you can't help but feel the same confidence he does-that anything is possible. A third straight ACC title, a national championship, an undefeated season?
Well, he's done the unexpected before.
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