A tale of two teams: home heroes, road ragged

The Duquesne men's soccer team went into the final weekend of its regular season with a chance to earn the Atlantic 10's top-seed. It left the weekend tied for the conference's seventh spot and out of the A10 Tournament.

With such strong momentum pushing the team toward an almost certain tournament berth, the question begging to be asked is: What went wrong?

The Dukes (7-9-2, 4-4-1) were rolling after back-to-back perfect weekends, going 4-0-0 and outscoring their competition 16-1. They only had to win one of their remaining two games to clinch a tournament spot, but fell to both Richmond and George Washington on the road, ending Duquesne's season with a resounding thud.

How such a dominant team the past two weeks could fall to a 5-12-1, 4-5-0 Richmond squad is baffling. The Dukes outshot the Spiders 23-14, including 18-4 in the second half, in their 3-1 loss Friday.

By the time Duquesne took the field against George Washington on Sunday, it was a foregone conclusion they would leave Washington, D.C. with yet another loss.

It's hard to believe a team so great at home could fail to win a single game on the road. Duquesne went 7-0-2, 4-0-1 at Rooney Field but could not find a way to win, or tie, any of its nine games away from the Bluff.

It's not that the Dukes were outplayed on the road. It's that for some strange reason, they weren't able to execute nearly as well as they were able to at home. They outshot their opponents 119-107 on the road, but were outscored 18-7, meaning they only took advantage of 5.9 percent of their shots on the road.

If Duquesne managed to go just 1-8-0 on the road instead of 0-9-0, they would be preparing to travel to St. Louis for the A10 Tournament.

Traveling beyond Pennsylvania's border couldn't have been their only issue, because the Dukes lost at Pitt's Ambrose Urbanic Field. In three straight games at Pitt, Duquesne lost a 1-0 double-overtime game to Bowling Green, surrendered two goals in the last 12 minutes of a 3-2 loss to Air Force and gave Pitt a penalty kick with less than four minutes remaining in a 1-0 loss.

And it is unexplainable that the Dukes could outshoot Robert Morris 16-6, Saint Louis 16-7 and Richmond 23-14, and not manage to win one of those three games.

This team was the definition of clutch at home. It scored a game-tying goal with six seconds remaining in a draw with St. Bonaventure, scored four goals in the last 14 minutes of a tied game in a 5-1 victory over Rhode Island and won a 2-0 must-win game over Temple.

But the Dukes found ways to lose away from home. Sophomore forward Simon Gomez was one of the few Dukes to play almost as well on the road as he did at home;,scoring four of his nine goals away from Rooney Field, but Gomez didn't receive the support he needed.

Junior forward Josh Patterson seemed primed to keep rolling after scoring seven goals in the team's four games prior to last weekend, but failed to net a single goal on eight weekend shots, while Gomez scored the team's only weekend goal on nine shots.

This season is sure to be disappointing, but Duquesne will return all of its core players, outside of goalkeeper Colin Thorp, next season. Gomez and Patterson will be back, as will Adam Clement, Carter Poe and Austin Lange. But this team will still be left with a bitter taste in its mouth.

Duquesne was the A10's best team for nine games at home. Duquesne was also the A10's worst team for nine games away. It's inexplicable, but it's true.