It wasn't the way Duke wanted to close out its fall season.
After winning their own classic Oct. 8, the No. 13 Blue Devils came up short Sunday and Monday at the Collegiate Match Play Championship in Greensboro, Ga.
Duke posted perhaps its poorest tournament performance of the season Monday, as top-ranked Charlotte knocked the Blue Devils out of the consolation bracket by a 3-1-1 score. The match against the 49ers began Sunday but concluded Monday due to darkness. Earlier on the first day, Duke fell 4-1 to Florida, which will compete today for third place.
"When you lose matches you definitely walk away with an empty feeling, so we definitely don't feel very good right now," head coach O.D. Vincent said. "Winning one match out of 10 is a pretty poor outing, so we don't want to forget what that feels like."
Much like in its match against the Gators, Duke got off to a very poor start Sunday versus Charlotte and was unable to recover despite some strong play late Monday morning. The Blue Devils' lone victory on the day came courtesy of junior Andrew Giuliani, who defeated Trevor Murphy 1-up.
Giuliani, a New York City native, began his match on the back nine and trailed by two at the turn, but won three consecutive holes to take the lead. The match was suspended at sunset with just three remaining, but Giuliani held on to earn his team a victory.
In the other four matches, Duke was able to keep the scores relatively close. Only junior Clark Klaasen, however, earned any points for the team. Klaasen played to a draw with 49ers junior Stefan Wiedergruen, who led for most of the round before Klaasen tied the score with a win on the pair's 16th hole.
"When you hear of teams feeding off each other positively, it happens negatively too, and I think that happened in the Florida match and it definitely happened in the Charlotte match," Giuliani said. "The consensus among the guys was that they didn't give their matches away, but that Charlotte really earned them."
In the three weeks between tournaments, the Blue Devils conducted a kind of internal match play tournament in order to determine which six players would travel to Greensboro. Giuliani, Klaasen, freshmen Wes Roach and Matthew Pierce, and senior Michael Schachner finished in the top five, earning them a place in this weekend's lineup.
Sophomore Adam Long, who came in third at the Duke Golf Classic, finished sixth in qualifying and was not slated to play in the match play tournament. Pierce, however, felt that the team had a better chance against Charlotte with Long in the lineup, and gave up his spot to the sophomore.
With this weekend in its rearview mirror, Duke now moves into an NCAA-mandated offseason with limited organized practice time. The Blue Devils do not return to the course until February at the Gator Invitational in Gainesville, Fla.
"We really have three and a half months to look at our games and figure out where we can get better, because ultimately we want to be where [Charlotte is] and we want to be the No. 1 team in the country," Giuliani said. "That's our goal, and I think it's definitely in reach with a good offseason."
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