The independent news organization of Duke University
During his two years in Durham, Ulfarsson made a name for himself scoring goals. And a lot of them.
Duke's sophomore star Thorleifur Ulfarsson has declared for the MLS SuperDraft after signing a contract with Generation Adidas.
Coming in at No. 10: Duke men's soccer bounces back from a subpar 2020 season to go to the ACC Championship game and third round of the NCAA tournament.
Sophomores Thorleifur Ulfarsson and Peter Stroud of Duke men's soccer have been named NCAA Division I Men's All-Americans, per a Thursday release from United Soccer Coaches.
Taking on No.10-seed Saint Louis in the third round of the NCAA tournament, the Blue Devils scored three goals, but that wasn’t enough, as their miracle season finally ended with a 4-3 loss.
The Devil works hard, but the Blue Devils work harder.
By all accounts, it’s been a historic season for head coach John Kerr and his Blue Devils, but the cards just didn't fall the way of the Blue Devils.
Duke men's soccer will be the No. 7-overall seed in the Division I Men's Soccer Championship, the NCAA announced Monday.
Through 90 minutes of an evenly-matched, back-and-forth battle at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C., Duke fell to Notre Dame 2-0.
Through 90 minutes of toil and trouble, battling against a hungry Clemson team at Historic Riggs Field in Clemson, S.C., Duke ultimately bested the Tigers 1-0 in the semifinals of the ACC tournament.
With a whopping 30 fouls, six yellow cards, two red cards and one penalty kick, both teams clawed at each other for any scrap of advantage in the nailbiter.
Four members of Duke men's soccer have received All-ACC honors, including ACC Offensive Player, Midfielder and Freshman of the Year for sophomores Thorleifur Ulfarsson, Peter Stroud and freshman Shakur Mohammed, respectively. Freshman Ruben Mesalles was also named to the All-ACC Freshman team.
Becoming ACC Coastal co-champions after a 2020-21 season that saw them finish with the second worst overall win percentage in the conference has been quite the journey for the Blue Devils, and Senior Night gave them the opportunity to reflect on that. While there are only three seniors and one graduate student on this year’s roster, a short but sweet pregame ceremony set the tone for a night that would be decided by dedication and leaving it all on the field.
Coming into this campaign, the expectations were simple—just be better than last year. While they were better than their 4-10-3 record would imply, the Blue Devils were an almost-there team, one that couldn’t quite finish.
“We do have a tough ending to the week, heading out to South Bend,... and we're going to continue to soldier on and learn from the mistakes that we did make tonight, and also continue to grow and develop some of our things that we're doing quite well,” head coach John Kerr said. “We will be the underdog, which is nice because we were on top of the table and everyone wants to shoot you down...so it's gonna be a fun opportunity for us and we're looking forward to it.”
After suffering its first loss of the season last week at Pittsburgh, Duke entered Friday night’s matchup standing at No. 9 on the poll.
Kerr said, “These guys want to play for each other. They want to play for the school, and they want to play for the program, and most of all they want to play for each other. Everyone's working hard every day to get better and we have a lot of fun while we're doing it, so… this is a little bit of a hiccup but a worthwhile growth opportunity.”
Just under 16 minutes into the game, the Blue Devils were staring at their first deficit of the season, going down by one on an opportune goal off Elon’s first shot of the game, and how they responded could set the tone for the rest of the season.
After freshman forward Shakur Mohammed scored first off a counter attack and an assist from sophomore Peter Stroud in the 22nd minute, the Blue Devils held the lead for the rest of the game after a stellar defensive performance, eventually coming away with a 3-1 victory.
“I think the team has just grown over time,” Thorleifur Ulfarsson said. “We're getting better and better at the best time of the year.”