Duke heads into Saturday night with a fresh challenge and a familiar burden: another top-ranked opponent, another road test, and another lineup shaped by injuries. The Blue Devils will travel to face No.
1 SMU at 6 p.m. CT/7 p.m.
ET, marking their first road match since Sept. 10 at NC State and their first trip outside North Carolina this season.
The matchup gives Duke a chance to reset after finishing its extended homestand at 3-3. The Blue Devils wrapped that stretch with a 3-0 shutout of Wofford on Tuesday night, their second clean sheet of the year. Freshman goalkeeper Max Deisenhofer picked up his first collegiate shutout, while Sol Arbib, Ethan Congleton and Jack Ottley supplied the goals.
Congleton and Ottley have been the steady spark for Duke all season. Each has five goals, and they sit one-two on the team in points with 13 and 14, respectively. Their production has mattered even more because Duke has spent much of the year piecing things together through a long injury list that has cost the Blue Devils minutes from seven starters and 10 expected contributors.
The absences have hit especially hard on the back line. Duke’s lineup has been missing pieces for stretches all season, with the cumulative impact adding up to more than 5,440 minutes and more than 59 full games.
Preston Zabinko has been out all season. Jamie Kabuusu returned for Duke’s 2026 debut against Queens, played 79 minutes and had an assist, then left the next match against Virginia Tech with another injury.
Maxwell Simpson and Josh Poulson both dealt with preseason knocks; Poulson has made four starts, while Simpson’s season debut at NC State lasted only 23 minutes before he was forced off again. Thomas Vold has been available for just three matches, and Ian Hecker, who moved into a starting role on defense, missed Georgetown and Wake Forest before leaving the Howard match with another knock.
Up front, Ulfur Bjornsson has missed Duke’s last five matches, and Logan Moniz has been out for the three most recent after both were injured in training.
Saturday also puts Duke in rare company. It will be the Blue Devils’ second meeting with a top-ranked conference opponent in the last three seasons, following a 2-2 draw at No.
1 Stanford on Sept. 22, 2024.
Duke last beat a No. 1 team on Oct. 1, 2022, when the fourth-ranked Blue Devils knocked off No. 1 Wake Forest, 3-2, in Winston-Salem.
In that top-five matchup, Duke scored all three of its goals after halftime.
Against SMU, Duke will see a program it knows only sparingly. The teams are meeting for the 10th time overall, and the Blue Devils are chasing their third win in the series and their first since 1996. It will be just the second matchup since SMU joined the ACC, after the sides played to a 2-2 draw in early October of 2024.
Fans can stream the match live on ACC Network Extra.
Duke’s men’s and women’s soccer programs have also partnered with Duke Children’s for the Kicks for Kids initiative, supporting Pets at Duke, a service of the Duke Cancer Patient Support Program. Pets at Duke sends specially trained therapy dogs to patients in the hospital and clinics to offer comfort and companionship during treatment.
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