Duke, Louisville meet Wednesday in men’s ACC soccer tournament

When Duke and Louisville meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Koskinen Stadium, they will have more in common than former teammates who are now head coaches.

Both teams need a win in the first round of the ACC Men’s Soccer Championship to keep their postseason hopes alive.

Ninth-seeded Louisville (6-8-3, 1-4-3 ACC), coached by Ken Lolla, needs to get to the .500 mark to be eligible for the NCAA tournament. Despite their record and three-game losing streak, the Cardinals own a No. 25 ranking in RPI. They would need to reach the ACC tournament final – which would duplicate their tournament run last year – to qualify for an at-large bid to the 48-team field.

Eighth-seeded Duke (10-6-2, 3-4-1) has a winning record, but its RPI of 39 could use some help. A win over Louisville could put the Blue Devils over the top.

“We know they’re going to be desperate,” Duke coach John Kerr said. “We know they have to beat us to survive. No question, we have the same sense of urgency as them, and we understand a win puts us firmly into NCAA consideration.”

Kerr and Lolla were teammates at Duke in 1983 when Kerr was a freshman and Lolla a senior. Lolla owns a 1-0-1 record against his alma mater, but this will be his first trip to Durham since Louisville joined the ACC last year.

Duke is riding a five-game winning streak, although the turnaround started three games earlier when the Blue Devils rallied from a 2-0 deficit to beat then-No. 23 Hofstra 3-2 in double overtime.

“We had five games left and knew we couldn’t leave it up to chance if we wanted to play in the postseason,” Kerr said. “We knew the N.C. State game was crucial.”

The Blue Devils responded with a resounding 6-2 victory over the Wolfpack that triggered the win streak.

On the field, the keys have been the offensive leadership of senior Zach Mathers and junior Brody Huitema.

Mathers moved from holding midfielder to a more central attacking role, while Huitema replaced an injured Macario Hing-Glover at a flank midfield spot. Mathers has totaled four goals and six assists over the final eight games and leads the team with seven goals and eight assists. Huitema has added three of his four goals and one assist in that span.

Wolfpack rematch: For the second time in 12 days, N.C. State (8-5-3, 1-4-3) will travel to Syracuse (10-5-2, 3-4-1), this time for a first-round matchup Wednesday night in the ACC tournament. When they met on Oct. 23, the Orange rallied past N.C. State 2-1 with two goals in the final 16 minutes.

State coach Kelly Findley doesn’t mind the rematch. “We were up there (12) days ago,” he said. “We know the field, we know the hotel, we know the travel, so in the end it might work out well for us. I think it’s hard to beat a team twice in a year, too.”

The Wolfpack played well at Syracuse despite coming off a disastrous loss at Duke. A red card on State defender Reed Norton was the turning point against the Blue Devils, resulting in a penalty kick, and Duke would score five more goals with the man advantage. Beginning with that loss, the Wolfpack dropped three of its final four games in the regular season.

“We had a lot of bad luck in that game,” Findley said of Duke. “That rattles you a little bit. And we’ve played good teams; the margins are thin. Our guys are confident. We played very well against Clemson (last Friday). The score (4-1) was not indicative of our performance. That gives me confidence. We’re playing well.”

The Wolfpack probably needs one more victory in its pursuit of an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. State has an RPI of 27 but can get a big boost with a win over the Orange, ranked 15th nationally with an RPI of 10.

Home cooking: It’s gotten tough to win on the road in the ACC this season, which could make the move to campus sites for the ACC tournament even more telling.

Home teams have posted a 27-10-11 record this season, and half of those losses were by the bottom two members of the 12-team league, Virginia Tech (2) and Pittsburgh (3).

The other 10 teams combined to lose only five times at home, and nobody else had more than one home defeat. Wake Forest beat Boston College 5-0 and Louisville 4-2, Clemson topped Syracuse 1-0 and N.C. State 4-1, and Syracuse won at Duke 3-1.

Junior college playoffs: Louisburg College, ranked No. 1 among Division I junior colleges for the past four weeks, will host the men’s NJCAA Southern District championship this weekend after claiming the Region X championship last weekend in Wilmington.

The top-seeded Hurricanes (19-1), who have won 18 in a row, will play fourth-seeded Darton State, Ga., (11-4) at noon Friday in one semifinal. Third-seeded Patrick Henry, Va., (12-6) meets second-seeded Eastern Florida State (12-1-2) in the other semi at 2:30 p.m. The winners will play at noon Saturday for the district title. Both finalists will gain berths in the 12-team national championship, which will be hosted by Patrick Henry College in Martinsville, Va., on Nov. 16-21.

Louisburg defeated Richard Bland (Va.) 4-1 and Patrick Henry 3-0 to claim the Region X title. Sophomore forward Max Blackmore, who leads Louisburg with 28 goals and 8 assists, was named Region X Player of the Year, and head coach Martin Dell was the Region X Coach of the Year. Sophomore defender Steven James, sophomore midfielder Alex Kao and freshman defender Jaric Spath were named to the all-region first team.

This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 4:38 PM with the headline "Duke, Louisville meet Wednesday in men’s ACC soccer tournament."