LA JOLLA, Calif. – Hosting No. 20 Duke in a Sunday night matchup, UC San Diego men's soccer dropped the preseason match 3-2 to the Blue Devils.
The Tritons are now 0-2-0 and Duke remains undefeated at 1-0-1.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Duke struck first in the 18th minute, putting the pressure on early.
In the 21st,
Andrew Valverde and
Max Carvalho responded as the gold and blue defense cleared the ball.
Cole Barrett made the steal and switched sides of the field to
James Redington. Seeing his teammate on the run, Redington sent the ball up the right field line to Carvalho who brought the ball down on the outside of the box near the goal line. He then sent the cross to the left side of the box to find Valverde for the header and first goal of the season.
The Blue Devils responded immediately in the 22nd minute with another goal, pulling back ahead of their hosts. In the first half, Duke tallied 13 shots with five on goal to the Tritons one.
Adding insurance to the board, Duke scored again in the 65th minute to pull ahead to 3-1.
It wasn't until the 84th minute that the Tritons buried another goal to pull within one with six minutes to go.
Andrew McGee wove his way through the Duke defense, dropping the ball to
Kai Oppenheim at the top of the box for a give-and-go pass. As the freshman tapped the pass back for McGee to bury.
The Tritons kept the pressure on into the final minutes but were unable to find the equalizer.
QUOTABLE
Coming back to play a top 25 team after a heartbreaker on Thursday night, head coach Jon Pascale said, "I am proud of the way the guys turned it around and prepared for tonight. Duke is a quality opponent and we stuck to our game plan really well."
"We are close to putting it together for a positive result," he added. "We have a deep team and being able to sub the way we did tonight lifted us, especially up front with our forwards."
TRITON TIDBITS
- This is the first meeting for the two squads and UC San Diego is only the second UC the Blue Devils have played.
- Keenai Braun made his first collegiate start in tonight's match.
- Andrew Valverde scored the first Triton goal of the season in the match's 21st minute of play.
- Andrew McGee scored his first goal of the season in tonight's match in the 83rd minute.
- Kai Oppenheim earned his first collegiate stat in the 83rd minute on his assist to McGee.
UP NEXT
UC San Diego will make their first road trip to Utah Valley for a Wednesday night matchup on Aug. 28 at 6 p.m. The game will be live on ESPN+ and live stats will be provided on ucsdtritons.com.
