Riding high from Friday night's 3-1 win against host Tennessee, No. 25 Duke was ready to take on No. 17 San Diego Saturday in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
But in its second challenging match of the weekend in Knoxville, Tenn., the Blue Devils ultimately could not beat the Toreros after forcing a decisive fifth game.
In the final game Saturday, San Diego (26-5) earned a 15-12 win to send Duke (29-4) home with a 3-2 match loss. The Toreros advance to the regional semifinal against No. 1 seed Nebraska in Gainesville, Fla. Friday.
"When a match goes to five games, that kind of a game can go either way," head coach Jolene Nagel said. "Our team did a great job battling, and we played a very good San Diego team. To take that amount of time is tremendous. The season that we had is tremendous."
The Toreros opened the fifth game with an 8-3 lead, but an 8-5 Blue Devil run brought the game within reach at 13-11. Duke put the pressure on and traded points with San Diego to put the score at 14-12 before the Toreros put the game away.
"We're all a little down in the fact that when we think about how it was a three-point difference that kept us from advancing and moving on," Nagel said. "It's going to take a while for that feeling to leave us."
After taking the first game of Saturday's match, 30-27, the Blue Devils hit a slump and dropped the second and third games, 25-30 and 17-30, respectively. A Duke rally in the fourth, however, gave the Blue Devils a 30-27 win, tying the match score and forcing the fifth game.
"We had a bit of a lull in games two and three, but we really turned that around in game four," Nagel said. "We made a few errors that let them get ahead in the fifth game-in this type of game, the team that makes the least errors wins. Both teams played tremendously. The game we played, it doesn't get much closer than that."
Carrie DeMange led Duke with 20 kills in the match, and the junior also had eight digs and four blocks. Senior Tealle Hunkus finished off her career with 18 kills and 11 digs.
The team's loss came on the heels of the first-round win Friday night. The Blue Devils beat the Lady Vols (19-11), 3-1, in the Stokely Athletic center, marking the first time Tennessee-which had reached the FInal Four in 2005-had lost at home in the NCAA tournament.
Duke dominated the Lady Vols in the first game, 30-22. Tennessee took the second, 26-30, but the Blue Devils won the third and fourth games, 30-25 and 30-27, respectively.
"It was a battle," Nagel said. "It was back-and-forth, we just had to hang tough and try to keep up.... We were all spent after that match, but they felt great about it. It's always encouraging and motivating when you beat a good team. It gave us extra incentive to go out there and try to win the next game."
And although Duke did not advance to the regional semifinal round, Nagel said its match against San Diego marked the end of a highly successful season for the Blue Devils, who won the ACC with a near-perfect league record.
"This team has accomplished so much, and we had tremendous leadership and a tremendous effort to challenge such a good team," Nagel said. "It's one of those special teams that you can only hope you have again. I know that we're going to learn a lot from this, but it's also very painful because we were so close. We have to remember what a great team and season this was. It was just a tremendous accomplishment."
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