In early October, Duke made a road trip through Virginia, taking on both ACC schools in the state and coming home with a pair of 3-2 wins. Last weekend, those teams—Virginia and Virginia Tech—came to Cameron Indoor Stadium in search of revenge. Duke needed even fewer games to take down the two opponents at home, though.
Duke (17-7, 11-4 in the ACC) beat both the Cavaliers and the Hokies 3-1 each, behind sophomore libero Ali McCurdy’s 58 total digs.
McCurdy, who was honored before Friday’s match against Virginia (8-17, 2-13) for becoming the fastest Blue Devil in history to amass 1,000 career digs, helped Duke’s defense hold the Cavaliers to a .087 hitting percentage.
After a slow, unaggressive start cost the Blue Devils the first set, the team got back on track and swept three straight games. Kellie Catanach, Christiana Gray and Chelsea Cook were relentless at the net, recording 14 total blocks. Catanach reached her second major milestone of the week, reaching 1,000 career digs after passing the 5,000 career assist mark last weekend.
The Blue Devils also downed the Hokies (13-13, 6-9) Saturday night, taking the match 3-1 in a rowdy Cameron Indoor Stadium. Again, Duke’s defense proved to be the difference, especially at the net. Christiana Gray led the team with 13 kills and five blocks.
The Blue Devils took the first set 25-23, but struggled to maintain the lead in the second set, losing 25-19.
Duke seemed to lose a bit of momentum going into the break between sets, but the Blue Devils looked re-energized once they stepped onto the court for the third set.
“I think we all walked in [the locker room] and felt that this is our home court and no one should beat us like this on our home court,” Gray said, “Cameron is ours and we [have] to defend our house.”
With the win, Duke moves to 12-1 at home this season, and has five regular-season games remaining.
“At this point in the season, we are trying to finish strong,” head coach Jolene Nagel said.
That may prove difficult, though, with the top two teams in the ACC coming to Durham later this week—Florida State, currently undefeated in conference play, and Miami, who swept the Blue Devils in Florida last month.
“I hope our girls can catch their breath a little bit here,” Nagel said, “We haven’t really talked [about these upcoming games] but I think they are going to be excited to take on these teams again and especially to play them here at home.”
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