Despite trying to be a polite host team at this past weekend's Duke Invitational, the women's volleyball team blew the competition out of Cameron Indoor Stadium, sweeping Southern Methodist, UNC-Charlotte and Cornell to improve to 5-1 on the season.
Sophomore Carrie DeMange led the way for the Blue Devils, earning the tournament's Most Valuable Player award for her frontcourt dominance. DeMange's best performance came against Cornell (1-2), as she just missed capturing her second career triple-double with 19 kills, 15 digs and 9 blocks.
Also making the all-tournament team were Duke outside hitter Tealle Hunkus and libero Jenny Shull, which displayed the kind of team effort that led head coach Jolene Nagel to believe that no individual player really stood out above the rest.
"At different moments there were definitely different standouts," Nagel said. "I could go down the list to say some very positive things that they did because I think they all did. I think we got everyone on our team in over the weekend to play, and when they had that opportunity they all did a great job."
SMU (4-5) provided the toughest test for the Blue Devils, as the Mustangs battled back from two games down to force a fifth and deciding game. Duke took its play up a notch to win the final game 15-8, but in spite of the victory, the team revealed its inconsistency on the serve.
"In the SMU match, we needed to be a bit steadier in our service game to do everything we wanted to do," Nagel said. "That was something going that we really talked about going into our morning match."
The team responded to Nagel's message by taking the Saturday morning match against Charlotte (2-7) by a 3-0 count, including a combined point score of 90-64.
Sophomore Ali Hausfeld spurred the offense by contributing a whopping 37 assists of Duke's 43.
"We have learned a lot from the past few games," DeMange said of the team's play in the tournament. "And we still have a long way to go. We have some big weekends coming up where we are traveling, so it was good to learn from this and move on to those."
In the nightcap against Cornell, Demange's near triple-double led the team to a 3-1 victory. The offense ran through Hausfeld once again, as the sophomore posted 58 of the team's 66 assists.
"I think we learned how to play tough," Hausfeld said. "This is some really good competition we've had here, and throughout our fourth and fifth games we really learned how to play together as a team and stick it out through the whole match."
Even though her team won all three matches, Nagel admitted experiencing moments of anxiety throughout the weekend.
"We had our moments where we would dig ourselves a little bit of a hole," Nagel said. "So we need to continue to work on our service game, continue to work on our communication and continue to work on our weaknesses so we can become a better team. I think I learned a whole lot about our team this weekend."
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