Virginia Men's Soccer Drops ACC Opener to Duke 1-0

Wyatt Wetzler | Sep 7, 2024

Virginia Athletics

A disappointing result for the Virginia Cavaliers at Klockner as the Duke Blue Devils left Charlottesville with three points on Friday night. After a tense 0-0 stalemate at halftime, the Blue Devils seized a 1-0 lead five minutes into the second half, and the score remained until the final whistle. Like with Colgate, the Virginia Cavaliers have lost their second game with just one shot on goal from the opposing team.

The first 15 minutes of the game saw Duke dominating possession, but they struggled to find any threatening positions. The Cavaliers, however, found it difficult to establish any rhythm without the ball. The first on-goal shot of the game came from Duke's Luke Thomas, forcing a stretched-out one-handed save from Joey Batrouni to push it over the bar. This would be the last on-goal shot of the night from the Duke Blue Devils.

The rest of the first fell into a cadence. Duke found more chances for shots but did not manage any on frame. Virginia prevented any dangerous attempts but could not get forward as the ball seemed tethered to the UVA side of the pitch. The problem: Virginia head coach George Gelnovatch says, "They pressed us in a man-for-man mode," and "it took us out of our rhythm." UVA's only threatening sequence ricocheted out of bounds on a clearance, denying the Cavaliers a single shot in the first half.

With five minutes left in the half, Klockner went nearly silent as it looked like Duke pulled away with their first goal of the night. A head ball challenge from Adam Luckhurst and Nick Dang met a ball whipped in from the right side of the 18. The inwards-swinging cross seemed to fall just in front of Luckhurst's left foot, setting up a side-foot volley that rose into the top left of UVA's net. While the Duke players ran to the corner to celebrate, the Cavalier defense rushed to the referees to protest the goal.

The home fans erupted with fervor from Klockner's reverberant metal stands as the goal was disallowed. Nick Dang won the initial header, but the ball glanced off Luckhurst's head before ricocheting into Luckhurst's left hand, setting him up. A handball violation let UVA narrowly escape the first half with a 0-0 stalemate.

Virginia's start of the second half marked a revived energy. They had more possession; Duke's momentum from the end of the first was gone. Five minutes in, it seemed there could be an upset in the game from the early Duke dominance, but that was a fleeting sentiment as the ball crossed into the UVA net moments after.

This goal was not going to be disallowed; it stood. Adam Luckhurst crossed a skipping ball from the right side on a counterattack. Dang and the Duke attacker went for the ball, and as Coach Gelnovatch said, "The ball got wide, and Nick got beat to the spot." Facing the net as he attempted a last-effort clearance of the cross, the ball bounced moments before he hit it, and Dang's clearance went backward into the bottom left of the goal. Batrouni had no time to react, and there was no chance to stop the surprise from the six-yard line. In an otherwise steadfast display of impenetrable defense, Nick Dang's own goal was an anomaly from his typical ball-stripping and goal-scoring performances.

While the own goal was a hit to UVA's renewed energy, with 25 minutes left in the game, the momentum distinctly transitioned to the Cavaliers. Duke, dropping into their half, conceded possession to Virginia at the half line for most of the second half. Brief moments of excitement would sporadically bubble throughout the half, but heavy through-balls and touches prevented most UVA build-ups from ending in a shot. The last bit of the game was a Cavalier onslaught of the Devils' defense, especially from the left side with Reese Miller. Virginia found chances to send balls across Duke's six-yard line, but the UVA balls could not find UVA heads.

With 16 minutes left, Virginia earned a free kick between the half line and the 18. Danny Mangarov flew a fastball into the Duke Box, bouncing just before their six. Luc Mikula met the dropping ball with a sliding kick that sent the ball on target. Even with the quick sliding ball in and Mikula's redirection, the Duke keeper impressively clutched the ball, parrying the only on-goal attempt of UVA's game.

The final whistle blew with a final score of Virginia 0, Duke 1. Duke's energy and pressure caught UVA off guard in the first half. Although they scraped through for the first 45 minutes, a disappointing goal spelled disaster early in the second half. Without a shot in the first 73 minutes, trailing Duke did not leave a struggling UVA offense with much chance.

While Virginia earned zero points in its first conference game, the loss is not a harbinger of worse. Dukes' domination of the first half was met with UVA's domination of the second. Head Coach Gelnovatch comments that losing in a game where the team had one shot on goal is disappointing, but "early on in the season and ACC games look like this." His takeaway: "We've got to have more of the ball, and we will."