Austin Da Luz provides an update from The Soccer Tournament in Cary

NCAA baseball tournament is underway. Virginia is up 10-0 over Army in the top of the third.

Do they have a slaughter rule? I don't even know. Kentucky and Ball State tied at zero. Isn't Ball State Ball State in Indiana or Kentucky? I feel like Ball State, maybe Ball State's in Indiana, but it's close by. Texas Tech up 1-0 over UConn. Plenty of teams still to come. Campbell and NC State should be getting underway.

That's getting going right here on the ACC Network. Wait, you got them on on the screen in there? Yeah.

Put them on my screen, man. Alright, next commercial break. No, no, no, no. We're gonna stop the show and have you watch. No, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. Don't catch. You can't do that, Hayes.

I have a Facebook radio. Don't let me catch you watching the game when I need help swimming through this show. But NC State, Campbell coming up at one o'clock. Also UNC Wilmington and Duke getting underway right now. So we're gonna have two winners and two losers from NC State teams out of that matchup. We probably will not have the end of those games for you. Well, we'll see how quickly they go.

Coming up in about 15 minutes, we'll talk to Luke DeCock from the News & Observer. Joining us right now from Cary, Wake Med Soccer Park, Team North Carolina FC. I thought they were gonna go up 2-0 and basically clinch a spot into the knockout round. They were the last team playing last night and as we talked about that target scoring means you end on a goal. They were, I think it was tied 5-5. Dudes were coming off the field and unfortunately the rally rebels punched one through.

So NCFC is 1-1 in their Group H. Here to discuss with us again the soccer tournament, Austin Deluz. What's going on, dude? I'm tired. I survived. We got another one here shortly. It's a hot, it's a hot, hot day.

So I'm just trying to mentally prepare over here, you know. You played, hold on. How many seasons did you play for teams in Raleigh, North Carolina? Not to mention the Wake Forest years.

Too many. But when you played in professional sports, you were playing the whole summer. You call it today hot is a little soft. Like I feel like you played some games in like 90, 95 degree days.

This is only, it's only 80 out there. Yeah, you know, that was when I was getting paid to do it. You know, I'm out here out of the goodness of my heart. You could be getting paid. If you guys were 2-0, you'd be one step closer to getting paid. That's true. Let me ask that.

I'll get personal with it. Have you guys discussed how the money would be divided up if you won or have you like saved that for the Final Four? Yeah, nobody has brought that up yet. I'm not sure if it's because nobody wants to jinx it or because nobody actually believes that we can win it. But regardless, we do not have a plan.

But yeah, you know, we win a couple more games and there's gonna be some hard conversations for sure. I feel like that's one of those things that you might want to map out before it because somebody's got a plan. They just haven't shared it with everybody else yet. That might be the case.

All right, you kind of answered it, but I did want to ask. I mean, it is kind of a cool thing. I was, I'm not trying to make you feel old because the lifespan of different athletes is different. Golfers can play on the PGA Tour until they're 50 and beyond these days. But I was comparing it to a Champions Tour type event of sort in that these are folks who are not playing professional sports at the highest level that they have played it. But they, people still care about them and they still have fans and just seeing them play is a cool thing.

And I think you fit in that category. But so I got to ask, like, after getting back out there and running again, maybe not at the same level, but at a high level of sport, how do you feel the next day? Like, did you, are you more sore than you thought? Less sore? Hurting different parts? What's hurting? I'm very sore. I'm very tired. Didn't get much sleep because we had the late game.

I got home about 12, 15 and ate half of a large melon mushroom pizza. And so, you know, the recovery, the recovery process is not the same as it used to be, but I actually feel pretty good. I feel better than I thought I would.

You know, we'll see, we'll see what happens, you know, five minutes into this game here under the sun. But yeah, I feel good. And like you said, man, it's just about getting out there, having fun, seeing some old faces and seeing some fans that were with us over the years and giving them the chance to reconnect with some of these players. And so, man, it's all good. It's all positive, good vibes out here. Did you, did you watch many of the other games or were you mostly resting in between games?

No, I've been watching quite a few. It's a great event. The organizers did a really good job putting it together. It's a lot of fun. The games are all, there's a lot of drama, a lot of, a lot of cool, cool players, you know, guys that played a long time in MLS and then you've got the international team. So it's a really fun event.

I feel fortunate to have gotten to watch a lot of the games in between ours. When you're watching the game, and again, I imagine there are people there for different reasons. You said you're playing for the love of the game. You're also out there to support an event that's, you know, at a place where you've basically been the face of soccer for so many years. So it makes sense that they have that local group that's together.

So people have different motivations for doing this thing. My question to you is, when you look at a game, can you look at a team and say, I think that those guys, two parter I guess, can you look at a team and say who the favorites are right now? And can you also look at a team and see by the way they play, hey, I think those guys might be playing for the motivation of a million dollars more than just for the love, in addition to their love of the game right now?

Oh, certainly, yeah. There are a few teams that it's very clear that they came here with winning in mind, which is great, which is how you should think about it. But it definitely shows in the way that they're approaching games. And yeah, I think, you know, I don't know who the favorite would be right now.

It's kind of hard to tell. You know, you've got teams that are playing kind of different styles. You've got some really skilled teams with a lot of good needs. You've got teams that are just very fit and a little bit younger and able to just run and run and run.

So it's a good mix. I think it's pretty up in the air. I think anybody could kind of, you know, get on a streak here and take it home.

So we're talking to Austin DeLuise. He plays at 2 o'clock in a huge game. Basically, the winner of the group comes... Does you advancing come down to this game? Whoever wins this game against Devil's Seven?

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, whoever wins between us and the Duke alumni team will end up getting second in the group and moving on. I believe that's how it's going to shake out. I saw that, I mean, it's got, you know, they still give you the goal differential or whatever, and like you guys have an advantage of them right now over goal differential. But with basically no ties are taken off the board. There's no draws, right? So like, yeah, when somebody's going to have to win the game, it's basically going to come down to this.

It's an elimination game of sorts. All right, you know, I'm not a soccer tactician. I'm a fan of watching it, especially when the national team or a local team is involved.

I used to call the NCHSA state soccer championships. So I appreciate the sport, although I'm not going to be able to break it down like an analyst. But my question is somewhat analytical or for people who are listening who know the sport even better than I do. Has there been, has one thing stood out as like the thing you've learned of playing from seven from seven? I mean, for example, I see some goalies coming way up and coming in possession and taking a bunch of shots, others hanging back more. Like, is there a thing you learned on the fly of like, oh, this is different than 11, you know, side soccer or like, this is how we're going to have to adapt to how this game is played? Yeah, the most interesting thing I think is, you know, once you get into that target score time at the end of the game, every five minutes, if the game is still going on, they remove a player from the field. And so watching teams adjust to that and some have done it better than others. But, you know, I've seen a couple of games get down to two v two. Then the goalkeepers get get very involved and they're up the field and I've actually seen a couple of goalkeepers score winning goals. So it's just cool. It's a unique thing that you kind of get to see people handle different ways. But really, I think it's, you know, in those situations, it comes down to who's who's the fittest and who can run the longest. But yeah, that's been a fun piece of it. When you go to that target goal time, do you have to designate what order people are coming off in or do you like stop and take a vote? Is it like, you know, we used to do flip cup relay races and like when your team lost, you'd have to vote one player off your side.

Like you do huddle up. You're like, hey, man, you're not you're not pulling in like one guy off. Yeah, it's pretty clear and nobody is really fighting it. If they get pulled, you know, 10 years ago, it might have been a little bit different.

But I think at this point, people are happy to have the break. So no, no controversies there yet. We'll see as the tournament goes on. And did I see correctly? I didn't get to watch both your games in full.

I was obviously hosting the show for one of them and one I watched part on YouTube. But did we get a goal, Austin Duluth? Did you put one in the back of the net? Two goals.

Two! Crushed the over. The over was just.5.

Didn't think he would get in the tally and he put two out there. So congratulations. You're carrying the team as you did for so many years. Well, cool.

I saw that it is sold out for the rest of the time. We'll let you rest up because I know you got a game of two. Best of luck to you guys. If you need help breaking down the million dollars, you need like a neutral partner to come in.

I'll do it for a small small 10 percent fee. I'll make sure everything gets allocated properly and you guys don't have to have any team tension as you advance. So best of luck at two o'clock and hopefully you'll be playing again tonight, I guess, if you win today. That's right.

Appreciate it. Austin Duluth, two-time goal scorer and the first ever the soccer tournament. He and NCFC take on the Devils 7 Duke alumni team. Winner will probably, I can't see another scenario where this wouldn't be the case, but again, it's the first one ever so I might be missing something. The winner of that will advance along with the rally, I think it was called the Rally Vipers, the team that went 2-0. Charlotte FC went 0-2. Beat it dorks. You guys are out.