Just as they did last weekend, the Blue Devils return home from a weekend on the road with a pair of victories but plenty of room for improvement.
Duke won two of its three matches at the Kansas Invitational at the Horejsi Athletic Center in Lawrence, Kan., defeating Missouri-Kansas City and Western Illinois without dropping a set, but was swept off the court by a Kansas team that entered the round-robin tournament right next to the Blue Devils on the outside looking in at the top 25.
Led by middle blockers Jordan Tucker and Leah Meyer, Duke eased past Missouri-Kansas City Friday morning in straight sets, 25-20, 25-21 and 25-22.
“UMKC is a really good team,” head coach Jolene Nagel said. “They are very scrappy defensively and very creative offensively…so we were very excited to get that match and get it in three [sets] because they are a really solid team.”
Tucker, a native of Prairie Village, Kan.,—a town located roughly 15 minutes away from the Kangaroos' campus—led all players with a season-high 12 kills in Friday's early action. Meyer notched double-digit kills, too, recording 10 on 18 attempts. Freshman outside hitter Jessi Bartholomew put down a career-high six kills for Duke (4-2), and three Blue Devils—sophomore Cadie Bates, sophomore Nicole Elattrache and junior Sasha Karelov—each notched double-digit digs.
Duke won the opening frame 25-20 thanks in part to seven errors by the Kangaroos (2-1). The Blue Devils proceeded to win the next two sets 25-21 and 25-22 to finish off the sweep in their opening round match.
“I think our team had a very good understanding going into the match of what [UMKC] was going to do offensively,” Nagel said. “I think that helped us a lot, but we also had a mindset going in that we were going to play great defense because we knew that they had a good offense… We needed to be familiar with [our opponents] and I thought that we did a really good job of that.”
The Blue Devils did not fare as well in their second match Friday—an 8 p.m. nightcap against the tournament hosts—losing to the Jayhawks 3-0 (25-17, 25-18, 25-23).
Kansas (6-0) limited Duke to a season-low .170 hitting percentage, recorded 7.5 blocks to the Blue Devils’ 2.0 and put down eight more kills. Kelsie Payne was the only player on either team to boast double-digit kills, with 10, and one of four Jayhawks to hit better than .300.
Duke committed 11 attack errors and totaled only 10 kills in a lackluster opening set. The following two sets were not much better for the Blue Devils, as the Jayhawks led wire-to-wire in the second, then overcame a 8-6 deficit to win the third and the match.
“We needed to do a better job at the net with our block—that would have changed it over to our defense with our digs,” Nagel said. “I don’t think we did a good job being big at the net [against Kansas], and we need to continue to work at that in order to be better.”
Duke returned to form in its final match, a 3-0 sweep of Western Illinois (0-6) Saturday afternoon, 25-15, 25-15 and 25-13. Meyer tallied a career-best 12 kills on 23 attempts and the Blue Devils recorded a season-high 11.0 blocks. The Leathernecks were held to a -0.21 hitting percentage for the match, and did not hit for a positive percentage in any of the three sets.
“Our team wanted to regroup and have a strong outing after not playing our absolute best the night before,” Nagel said. “We were pretty hungry in that regard, and we wanted to get on the right track moving forward, as we get stronger opponents. And I think our team did that—we played really well [against Western Illinois] and we blocked much better, which led to their so few kills.”
Duke’s defense was as dominant as its offense against the Leathernecks. Junior libero Sasha Karelov led all players with 14 digs and redshirt senior setter Maggie Deichmeister also had six digs, adding 26 assists, two aces and three blocks.
The Blue Devils played the tournament without junior defensive specialist Chloe DiPasquale and senior outside hitter Emily Sklar, both of whom are dealing with injuries that Nagel described as “day-to-day."
After two weekends on the road to open the season, Duke will return to Cameron Indoor Stadium for its first two home matches of the season Friday against No. 2 Stanford and Saturday against UNC Wilmington.
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Jacob Weiss is a Trinity senior. His column, "not jumping to any conclusions," runs on alternate Fridays.