Emotions will be flying high in Cameron Indoor Stadium when the Blue Devils (14-13, 5-10 in the ACC) hit the hardwood today against the top ranked team in the conference, No. 13 Florida State, and then turn around to take on Miami Saturday. Not only will the level of play be competitive, but Saturday also marks senior night for the three Duke seniors on the squad—Christiana Gray, Megan Hendrickson and Nailah Waterfield.
“We’ve got a big weekend ahead of us,” head coach Jolene Nagel said. “Saturday is also senior night. It’s wonderful because we get to celebrate their accomplishments, but also really hard because you get to know these girls so well and form such close relationships with them. So it’s sad at the same time.”
Duke heads into the match against the Seminoles having lost the teams’ last meeting. Florida State (22-3, 13-2) is a skilled team all around as shown in its first-place ranking in several statistical categories in the conference. The Seminoles lead the ACC in hitting percentage with .287, followed by Miami in second with .244. Florida State will likely look to Sareea Freeman for a solid performance on the offensive side of the net. The senior leads the conference with a hitting percentage of .456, followed by her junior teammate Ashley Neff who sits in second place with a .418.
The Hurricanes also dominate the conference statistically. Miami, which is ranked second overall in the ACC, leads the conference in assists, averaging 13.22 per set and trails behind Florida State in terms of kills per set, averaging 14.23. The Hurricanes will likely look to Nrithya Sundararaman to generate production on offense. The senior leads the conference in assists per set, averaging 10.60. Miami’s sophomore couple of Emani Sims and Alexis Mourning are second and third in the ACC in terms of blocks averaging 1.34 and 1.31 per set, respectively.
Nagel is excited for her squad to get a second chance at these two teams who both took Duke down three sets to one on their home floors. Having the Seminoles and Hurricanes in Cameron will likely be an advantage for the Blue Devils as the team has a home record at home of 9-4. Duke’s two conference foes have posted impressive numbers this season, but the last time the Blue Devils faced either was in September.
“Well they are both really good teams,” Nagel said. “FSU has had a great year and they are a really good team. They are very well coached and very talented, but when we played them, it was our second weekend out in the ACC and we were still trying to figure out who we were. We are really excited to play them at home. It’ll be nice to see how we have progressed.”
The only category Duke leads the two teams in is digs. Junior libero Ali McCurdy continues to lead the conference in digs per set, averaging 5.46 per set.
Middle blocker Christiana Gray will spearhead the Blue Devil attack. The senior leads the team in kills so far this season with 265, followed closely by sophomore Jeme Obemie who has 263.
Duke is coming off a split weekend having beaten Boston College Friday night but fallen to Maryland Sunday. The Blue Devils have a quick turnaround playing this unusual Thursday night game, but Nagel is confident that her team will be prepared for anything that is thrown at them.
“Yeah, we did get back pretty late on Sunday night,” Nagel said. “But this is how the schedule goes, you have to be ready at the time the whistle blows.”
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