On senior day at Method Road Stadium, State could not find the net and Duke was sure to take advantage. The Blue Devils scored once in each half and allowed State few opportunities to get back into the game, handing the Wolfpack its seventh ACC loss.

“If you ask me if this team gave everything they have, I would say they did,” coach George Tarantini said. “It’s a hard loss for us.”

Tarantini praised the goaltending of Christopher Widman, who finished with eight saves in the 2-0 loss.

“We need to create more opportunities to score. How are you going to blame the goalkeeper if you don’t score any goals? You have to score goals before you start pointing fingers at the defense,” Tarantini said.

State now looks to the ACC tournament, which will begin on Tuesday. Although the Pack has a losing record on the season, it will participate in a play-in game against Virginia at the SAS Soccer Park in Cary.

Senior Hugh Cronin, who was honored before the game alongside departing players El Hadj Cisse, Ernesto Di Laudo, Tom DeStefano and Phillip Foy, said State missed out on a golden opportunity.

“That was a big game for us. If we would have won, it would have put us in the seven spot, but we couldn’t pull it out, so now I guess we’re going to be playing on Tuesday in the 8-9 game, and hopefully we can get a result there.”

Cronin said State has one last chance to fix its scoring woes and show what the team is capable of doing.

“In the ACC tournament, anything can happen,” Cronin said. “It’s basically a new season. Hopefully we can get things together and make a good push there.”