Duke & Virginia Tech Battle To Scoreless Tie, 0-0, In Double-Overtime

Tuesday, September 12

Durham, N.C.

7:00 p.m.

Duke University

Virginia Tech

Duke & Virginia Tech Battle To Scoreless Tie, 0-0, In Double-Overtime

9/12/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer

By: Duke Sports Information

DURHAM, N.C. ? In a battle of two of the top 15 teams in the nation on Tuesday at Koskinen Stadium, the third-ranked Duke men's soccer team and 15th-ranked Virginia Tech battled to a scoreless tie, 0-0, in Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) action. The Blue Devils move to 5-0-1 overall and 1-0-1 in the ACC while the Hokies stand at 4-1-1 and 0-1-1 in league play.

“That's a part of the nature of the game, sometimes the goals don't come,” stated Duke Head Coach John Rennie. “They (Virginia Tech) have a good plan. They defend with everybody and leave one guy up top and try to counter to him. To beat a team that defends like that, you have to score goals and then they have to come out and play and then the game opens up a little more. We didn't score goals and the game didn't open up.”

Duke had a number of scoring chances in the first half. In the 24th minute, junior Zach Pope had a shot blocked, but sophomore Mike Grella corralled the ball and fired another shot at the Hokie goal that was saved by junior midfielder Marcus Reed. Duke freshman Joshua Bienenfeld also nearly put the Blue Devils ahead in the 44th minute when he rocketed a shot from 30 yards out that bounced off the crossbar.

The Blue Devils outshot the Hokies, 6-5, in the opening stanza, with each team recording one shot on goal.

“The goal was two inches too narrow or too short (tonight),” Rennie added. “It's hard to score goals. We've been scoring a lot of goals but it's hard to score goals and you need that first one and we didn't get it.”

Both teams came out firing in the second half with five shots taken in the first 12 minutes of action. During this series of shots, Virginia Tech goalkeeper Brendan Dunn made two key saves in the 57th minute when he stopped back-to-back shots by junior Michael Videira and Grella.

In the final minutes of the second stanza, Virginia Tech's Patrick Nyarko blasted a shot at Blue Devil goalkeeper Justin Papadakis, which was saved. Duke's Pavelid Castaneda and Virginia Tech's Ben Nason also took shots in the final minute but one went high and the other was blocked, respectively.

Duke again outshot Virginia Tech, 6-5, in the second half with both teams registering three shots on goal.

During the 10 minutes of action in the first overtime, Duke dominated the field taking two shots by Joe Germanese and Spencer Wadsworth, but Dunn saved both attempts.

In the second overtime, Duke's Castaneda had one of the best scoring opportunities of the game as he fired a shot from 25 yards out in the 104th minute that bounced off the left post, leaving the game scoreless.

For the match, Duke held a 16-11 shot advantage and 8-4 lead in corner kicks. In the net, Papadakis finished with four saves for the Blue Devils, while Dunn had six. Over the last three contests between the Blue Devils and Hokies, two of them have ended in a tie. Last season in Blacksburg, Va., the two squads finished with a 2-2 tie.

“Virginia Tech is going to look for their chances on a counter-attack and we dealt with that very well,” Rennie said of Duke's defense effort. “We were able to control a lot of the game, particularly in the second half. We just didn't get a goal, it's as simple as that. It was a great defensive effort. We shut out one of the best goal scorers we'll see so it was a good defensive effort.”

The Blue Devils will next return to the field on Sept. 16 with a 1:00 p.m. contest at Harvard.

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