After sweeping Boston College in three games at home Friday night, the Blue Devils remain undefeated in the ACC and in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
With the 30-21, 30-28, 30-17 win, Duke (16-2, 9-0 in the ACC) finished up its stretch of five matches in eight days and has a few days of rest before it travels to Florida this weekend to play Miami and Florida State.
Despite a matchup with the second-place Seminoles next weekend, Duke did not look past the Eagles (6-11, 4-4) and made sure to secure a win.
"We've been really working hard to look at one match at a time, one game at a time," head coach Jolene Nagel said. "The team has been playing with such composure and maturity and determination."
This philosophy helped the Blue Devils capture the second game after a gritty battle with Boston College. After Duke took an early lead in the game, the Eagles fought back to tie it at six. A pair of service and attack errors by the Blue Devils allowed the Eagles to pull ahead briefly.
Nonetheless, Duke maintained its composure, and effective serving by Ali Hausfeld led to five attack errors by the Eagles, allowing the Blue Devils to take the lead at 17-13. After Duke took a 28-22 lead on a kill by Sue Carls, Boston College clawed back once again to 29-28.
A timeout by the Blue Devils stopped the Eagles' run and Duke went into the locker room with a 2-0 advantage.
"If we were going to win, we just had to jump on them and have the momentum going into the third game and take no prisoners," Carls said. "We just really had to send a message that we weren't going to let them back into the game because the ACC is one of those conferences where in any given night a team can come back."
Duke was able to keep the momentum from Carls' game-winning kill to come out strong in the third game. The Blue Devils scored first on a kill by Rachel Moss, assisted by Hausfeld. Duke quickly built a double-digit lead with 14 players seeing action.
In the first game, the Blue Devils scored the first point on a kill by Carls, also assisted by Hausfeld. Boston College never challenged for the lead.
Despite two timeouts by Boston College, Duke won the game, 30-21. Moss recorded the final three kills for the Blue Devils. The freshman finished with 13 kills to lead the team.
Libero Jenny Shull had nearly half of her season-high 31 digs in the first game. She now has 1,293 career digs, placing her fifth on Duke's all-time list.
"We are so thrilled.... but we have a long ways to go," Nagel said. "The only thing we're thinking about right now is trying to prepare for next weekend, where we'll be going away for a couple of matches. But first I want them to rest some, so we can hit it early next week as we prepare for Florida State and Miami."
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