Duke will host Utah State, Liberty and South Carolina for the annual Duke Invitational this weekend at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Blue Devils' action is slated to begin Friday when the team takes on the Liberty at noon, followed by Utah State at 7 p.m. Saturday’s match against South Carolina kicks off at 1:30 p.m.
"Everything has been busy with travel, but we're excited to be home this week and hopefully we can get some fans out," head coach Jolene Nagel said. "We've usually done pretty well in regards to fans, but this week we have a [home] football game."
After being away for the past two weekends, the team will open their home schedule against the Flames, who have lost six of their first seven matches, dropping straight sets to unranked teams in four of those defeats.
Utah State (5-2) has added seven freshmen to the mix, matching Duke (4-2) with an equally young squad. Last season, the Aggies recorded a 21-9 record, taking the WAC regular season title in 2012.
The Aggies led the WAC in blocking, while Nagel said that since last weekend’s loss to No. 4 Minnesota, the Blue Devils have concentrated their efforts on executing against a big block.
South Carolina (3-3) competed in last weekend’s Big Orange Bash in Clemson, S.C. taking on Furman, Clemson and Winthrop. The Gamecocks lost all three contests and are hoping to get back on track this weekend at Duke.
“We don’t know a lot about these teams,” Nagel said, “But we’re all excited to be home this weekend.”
Also on the Blue Devils’ to-do list is getting the most out of their four outside hitters. Sophomore Emily Sklar is leading the charge, along with sophomore Jeme Obeime, whose experience has helped Duke's freshmen this season.
Nagel said that her squad plans to use the weekend to further develop its underclassmen and help them to better adjust to college play.
“The game is a different speed than when kids are younger,” Nagel said. “What we need to do is get them offensively familiar with the speed of how we play.”
Standout freshman Jordan Tucker posted big numbers against Ball State and Western Illinois last weekend, tallying the second most kills on the weekend behind Sklar.
Nagel said that she is pleased with her freshman class and expects that this week’s practice has addressed the squad’s issues with serving and unforced errors.
“It’s just little tiny things sometimes that make all the difference in the world,” Nagel said. “Now, people just need to get repetitions, especially with defense and controlling the serve-receive.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.