Men's soccer drops second straight match

A speedy Duke unit outran the No. 2 Terrapin men's soccer team Friday night, sinking theTerps 2-0, a loss that drops them to 2-1-1 in ACC play.

The game started well for the Terps (5-3-1), who controlled possession despite operating without injured midfielder Doug Rodkey (foot) and playmaking forward Casey Townsend (ankle).

But Duke's dynamo freshman forward Ryan Finley started exposing cracks in the Terp defense in the later minutes and sent the team into the locker room at halftime with several very close calls on goal. Two of those quality chances came from Finely, who had four of Duke's five first-half shots

Duke ramped up the assault in the second half with the addition of sophomore burner Temi Molinar, whose ball-handling put him behind the Terps defense almost as often as Finley.

In the 52nd minute, Finley snatched the ball from defender Ethan White in front of the box and attacked the goal almost unguarded.  Terp goalkeeper Zac MacMath ran out to challenge him, but the Duke forward kicked it out of the diving keeper's hands. All MacMath could do was sit and watch helplessly as the ball floated into the corner of the net.

Terps forward Kwame Darko showed hints of life in the 76th minute when, making up for several first-half foibles in the box, he made a spectacular sliding save on an otherwise wide-open net.

Three minutes later, though, Duke senior Trae Harrison would put the game out of reach for the Terps, heading a corner off the crossbar just out of MacMath's reach and into the goal.

In the end, though, the only area Duke came out on top was in goals: Maryland outshot the Blue Devils 16-11 and Duke piled up 16 fouls in the second half ,including three yellow cards.

After the game, Terps coach Sasho Cirovski said the Terps played better than they did in Thursday's 2-0 loss to George Mason and called the game a "good performance with a bad result."