Men’s Soccer: Bad weather ends game against Duquesne early

The Duquesne Dukes found a way to stop the Pitt Panthers soccer team this season: wait for… The Duquesne Dukes found a way to stop the Pitt Panthers soccer team this season: wait for lightning.

Officials suspended gameplay between Pittsburgh’s cross-city rivals Tuesday night in the 61st minute when they spotted lightning over the Monongahela River. After 90 minutes of ominous thunder, wild wind and heavy rain, they officially called off the soccer match.

Pitt led when the storm rolled in, 1-0. A victory would have given the Panthers their first 3-0 start since 2002, when they began the year 5-0.

When or if the two teams will make up Tuesday night’s contest has not yet been decided. The unfinished game Tuesday “is considered a no contest,” according to Duquesne’s athletic site.

“If we had played just nine minutes longer before the delay, it would have counted as a completed match,” Pitt head coach Joe Luxbacher said. “If you play 70-plus minutes and the game is suspended, then the result would stand. We were really just nine minutes from a solid win.”

The match began under clear skies, but by 8:45 p.m., those in attendance noticed lightning to the southwest of Duquesne’s Rooney Field. Soon enough, a line judge saw the lightning and whistled the game to a halt.

Players from both teams came to the sidelines before officials conferred and opted to resume play. Pitt nearly scored on a cross to Sam Luffy when play resumed, but after just 50 seconds of game time, more lightning enacted a mandatory 30-minute delay.

The players never returned to the field, and the storm’s heavy rain hit the stadium by 9:20 p.m.

“According to NCAA rules, when a game is delayed for lightning, the game must be restarted no more than 90 minutes after the game would have ended,” Luxbacher said. “The game started at 7:30 p.m. and would have ended about 9 p.m., so the latest we could have resumed play would be 10:30 p.m. The site administrator from Duquesne could not give clearance before 10:30 p.m., so the game was suspended.”

Junior Terry Akpua scored his first career Panther goal in the 22nd minute when a Dukes defender mishandled a through ball from Pitt’s Ryan McKenzie. The ball came to Akpua, who wired the ball into the top right corner of the net. But because the lightning-out stopped the game, none of the statistics count, and he technically remains goalless for his Pitt career.

Duquesne’s Sean Gardner had a chance to tie the game late in the first half when he snuck to the back post on a corner kick, but his redirection rolled wide.

The Dukes dialed up the offense and outshot Pitt, 3-0, in the second half, but the Panthers defense handled what Duquesne threw at them until the weather turned. The Dukes outshot Pitt for the game, 8-4.

“This was obviously a disappointment for our guys,” Luxbacher said. “We had a 1-0 lead with about 29 minutes remaining and were playing well against a very good team. Now the win does not go in the book.”

Pitt returns to action Friday at 7:30 p.m. to take on Army in the Pitt/Nike Tournament at Founders Field. The forecast: partly cloudy, 0 percent chance of rain.