GREENSBORO, N.C. - In the two weeks since the Blue Devils fell to Clemson in the ACC tournament, coach Gail Goestenkors has patrolled her team's practices with the eyes and acumen of a battle-tested general. She felt her players grew too soft against Clemson, and challenged them to become tougher, more tenacious and adopt a take-no-prisoners mentality.
Saturday afternoon in the East Regional semi-finals against Old Dominion, her players fought, battled and clawed like warriors.
Today, the Blue Devils find themselves alive and kicking in the NCAA tournament, and one monumental upset away from reaching the first Final Four in the program's history.
Playing an ODU team that has always prided itself on being the aggressor and outhustling the opposition, down the stretch Duke beat the Lady Monarchs at their own game, coming up with the hustle plays, ripping down the crucial rebounds and negating ODU's defensive pressure with adept ball-handling.
"We knew it was going to be a very physical game, and it was," coach Gail Goestenkors said. "Old Dominion was a tremendous team. I told [my team] before the game, 'This is survival of the fittest, and this is going to be a war out there. And the toughest team mentally and physically is going to win the game.' We just played like warriors, and that's what we've been focusing on the last two weeks."
The two weeks of practice and the two early-round wins against relatively unathletic Holy Cross and St. Joseph's still did not prove to give Duke enough preparation for ODU's frenetic defensive pressure in the first half. Duke committed 16 first-half turnovers, but still clung to a four point lead at halftime.
A different Duke squad, however, took the floor for the second half. Refusing to be flustered by the Monarchs' pressure, the Blue Devils cut their turnovers in half and used ODU's ball-hawking defensive ploys to their advantage.
Instead of continuously looking to pound the ball inside to Michele VanGorp, the Blue Devils swung the ball around to the player left open by the trapping ODU defense, who would then have the chance to pop the open jumper or penetrate.
After the Monarchs clawed to within two points of Duke at 38-36, Peppi Browne drove the lane for two. Georgia Schweitzer, who scored seven of Duke's first nine second-half points, then drew a foul inside two possession later, hit the two free throws and drilled an open 17-footer on the next possession to extend the lead back to eight.
"[Old Dominion forward] Mery Andrade was not guarding Georgia Schweitzer, she was guarding Michele VanGorp," Goestenkors said. "We told Georgia, 'You've gotta step up, you're the one that's open because they're doubling.' We usually do a good job of finding that open player."
But teams cannot beat Old Dominion by finesse alone, they must also match the Monarch's intensity and aggression-and Duke did exactly that.
"I thought we were very aggressive," Goestenkors said. "We got to the loose balls. Usually, Old Dominion gets to all the loose balls and all the tips. They had their fair share, but I thought we also did a great job."
The Monarchs, however, continued to hang around and with five minutes in the game, reeled off a mini 4-0 run that closed Duke's lead to 64-59 and threatened to pull the game even closer before the Blue Devils came up with perhaps their biggest hustle play of the season.
With the shot clock winding down, Nicole Erickson took an off-balance leaner from the free throw line that did not find rim. But Lauren Rice, who had established position on Andrade inside, fought off Andrade for the rebound and drew the fifth foul on ODU's senior leader as the shot clock hit zero. Rice hit the two ensuing free throws to put the Blue Devils safely in front by seven.
Despite being soundly beaten 14-5 on the offensive glass on the night, Rice crashed the boards that time the way her coach wanted-like a warrior-and came down with the ball and Duke's ticket to the Elite Eight for the second straight season.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.