No. 4 Duke women's soccer falls to No. 2 Virginia, 1-0

Durham, N.C. — For the third time this season, the Duke women’s soccer team hosted the second-ranked team in the nation at Koskinen Stadium. The fourth-ranked Blue Devils would go on to drop a 1-0 decision to No. 2 Virginia on Sunday afternoon. 

With the loss, the Blue Devils fell to 8-3-0, 3-1-0 in the ACC, while the Cavaliers improved to 10-1-1, 3-1-0.            

How It Happened

In the first minute of the match, Duke had a great opportunity as a ball was sent into Michelle Cooper, but Virginia goalkeeper Cayla White charged out from the goal and made a good stop.

The Blue Devils featured a few good scoring chances with crosses into the box early in the match, but couldn’t get a foot on the serve.

Virginia was able to get on the board with a goal off transition. Haley Hopkins found Lia Godfrey in front of the goal at the 27:35 mark for the only tally of the match.

At the end of the first half, both teams had five shots each.

Duke’s Maggie Graham had two great scoring chances in the 68th minute, but White made two outstanding saves to keep the Blue Devils off the board.

The Blue Devils outshot the Cavaliers, 4-1, in the second half.

For the match, Duke held a 9-6 advantage in shots.

Notes

All three of Duke’s losses this season have come to the No. 2 ranked team nationally.

The Blue Devils snapped an eight-match winning streak in ACC regular season action dating back to last season.

Duke dropped a match at home for only the 10th time out of the last 68 matches in Durham.

Delaney Graham started her 91st career match, which tied Tara Campbell for the most starts by a Blue Devil in school history.

The Blue Devils had posted three straight shutouts on defense heading into the match.

Michelle Cooper was held without a point for only the eighth time out of 28 matches played as a Blue Devil.

Quotes

“We gave the ball away too much at times. This one hurts.  We had them on our field. We were good enough – we should have won the game.  We created enough opportunities and chances to win the game.  We talk about – especially against a top-five team -- we cannot turn the ball over at different times.  They are a good transitional team and their goal was a really nice transitional goal.  I was proud [of how we responded] after the goal.  We settled down and we created opportunities. We just let these people off the hook here.  We are doing enough to win, but we are not winning the moments.  There are certain moments of the game and we are not doing it in the final third.  We had plenty of opportunities to score in there.”  – Duke head coach Robbie Church

Next Match

Duke will continue its three-game homestand as the Blue Devils host Wake Forest on Thursday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. The match will be aired on ACC Network Extra from Koskinen Stadium.