The Blue Devils were able to notch an early goal against the Wolfpack and did not need any help after that.
Duke defeated rival N.C. State for the 14th straight time Thursday night at Dail Soccer Field in Raleigh by a score of 1-0. This is also the 11th straight match in which the Blue Devils have held the Wolfpack scoreless—good for 1,012 consecutive minutes of shutout ball.
“That’s a crazy number,” head coach Robbie Church said. “I guess it just happens that we play well against them. Sometimes their program’s been a little down, but it’s not down now—it’s heading in the right direction…. But that’s a crazy number. We’re just glad to win because it gives us another ACC win.”
Aside from their dominance over N.C. State, this is the third straight victory for a Duke squad that has been looking to establish some consistency with just eight matches remaining before the ACC tournament in November.
Over its past three games, Duke (6-4-0, 2-0-0 in the ACC) has outshot its opponents 76-20 and outscored them 5-0. The Blue Devils have also spread the offense evenly with five different players finding the back of the net in those three matches. Sophomore Rebecca Quinn was the loan goal-scorer Thursday night for Duke, sending a Toni Payne feed calmly past the Wolfpack keeper in the 14th minute for what would be the deciding goal.
Competing in the always-loaded ACC is and facing a tough schedule down the stretch, it will be critical for the Blue Devils to maintain this level of play through October and beyond.
“Number one, these past three games we have really come out of the gates and played well,” Church said. “We only scored one goal… but we came out and we played hungry and we played hard.”
Despite holding N.C. State (2-6-2, 0-2-0) to just six shots on the day, Duke had to stave off a late rally attempt by the Wolfpack including a near-miss with two minutes remaining in the contest. With the clock ticking down toward completion, freshman forward Kayla Saager accepted a pass just outside the Duke 18-yard box surrounded by two defenders and was able to escape her opposition with a smooth move to her right toward the middle of the field. The East Islip, N.Y., native ripped a shot from the perimeter of the box that sailed over the outstretched arms of a leaping Ali Kershner only to collide with the crossbar. The play did not end there, though.
As the Blue Devils exhaled, the ball rebounded to Wolfpack forward Caroline Gentry, who took a strong shot from ten yards out. Fortunately for the Blue Devils, Kershner was able to react quickly enough to get in front of the shot and force it out of bounds for a corner kick that would later be deflected out of play in Duke’s favor.
“I thought the last twenty minutes [N.C. State] played pretty well,” Church said. “Teams are realizing—and Hofstra did this too and actually beat us—they’re beating us but we're only down a goal…. We were fortunate. [Saager] made a nice little turn, a nice little cut, and she knocked it right off the crossbar then Ali came back and batted some balls down to get out of there.”
Duke is now 3-0 in true road games this season and will face its toughest test to date when they travel to Blacksburg, Va., to face No. 2 Virginia Tech Sunday afternoon. But as the season continues the Blue Devils will hit the road twice more against top contenders before heading to the ACC tournament and—with efforts like Thursday night's performance—the NCAA tournament.
And Church believes this team is as prepared as any to win big games.
“We’ve still got three more true road games in the ACC to be played and, wow, what venues we’ve got to play [in],” Church said. “At Virginia Tech, at Clemson, at Florida State, so it’s nice to know that, hey, we can go into these games [and win them].”
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