Upcoming Event: Men's Soccer versus California on November 5, 2025 at 7 p.m.
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7 p.m.
Men's Soccer
vs California
Quotes: Wake Forest 4, Duke 2
11/29/2009 7:00:00 PM | Men's Soccer
Duke Men's Soccer at Wake Forest
NCAA Tournament Third Round
Head Coach John Kerr
Thoughts on the game
"It's a great learning experience for our guys. I thought coming into the game we had a chance to win and we put together a game plan to go along those lines. It went a little astray when they converted their chances. I thought if we could go in [down] 2-0 at halftime and come back out and get one early and put them under pressure. But that third goal really hurt. In fairness to us we did great to hang in there and not pack it in and we kept attacking and kept our formation. We did really well. At halftime I think the stat sheet said both teams had seven shots and we had four corners. So we weren't going to just sit back and defend like we probably did the first game. We wanted to come out and put pressure on them, but Jay [Vidovich] has done a great job with his team and they were well prepared. They're very comfortable on the ball and it's very difficult to play against them.
On the team's doing better in attacking than in the regular season meeting
"We changed our tactics a little bit [in terms of attacking]. We put another guy up front and I thought in the first 20 minutes of the game we had some good opportunities and unfortunately we didn't take them. But it started off really well for us. Unfortunately Wake Forest is very talented and they converted three good opportunities they had in the first half and it was unfortunate because I thought we played quite well."
On what makes Wake Forest so tough to beat
"Their movement is tremendous. They move in sync with each other. They know where each other are and the ball keeps moving and it makes it very difficult for defenders to track them."
Senior Midfielder Ryan McDaniel
On the possible momentum shift after Belshaw made the penalty kick save
"Anytime you get a big swing like that, a goal or a saved penalty kick, it helps give you momentum. Credit to [James Belshaw] because it was a heck of a save. It's hard to sustain that though sometimes and I think that if we had the ball directly after that more in their half we might have been able to put them under more pressure. But unfortunately it was kind of a midfield game after the penalty kick, which kind of slowed the momentum down."
-d-u-k-e-
Players Mentioned
M
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