With the Blue Devils trailing 17-14 in the first set and the momentum seemingly shifting toward Wake Forest, Duke head coach Jolene Nagel called a timeout to settle her team.
The Blue Devils responded with a back-breaking 10-1 run to seize control of the match.
This run served as the catalyst for a 25-19, 25-21, 23-25, 25-18 victory against the Demon Deacons Wednesday at Reynolds Gymnasium in Winston-Salem, N.C. Emily Sklar began the dominant stretch with a kill before serving throughout the run to help Duke take the opening set. The Blue Devils capitalized on this momentum shift to extend their winning streak to a season-high three games and defeat Wake Forest for the second time this season after sweeping them Sept. 23 in Durham.
“We’ve been working on that in practice a lot, where…we had to do four good things in a row rather than just one,” Nagel said. “I think that was a good example of how we stayed focused on the point that we were playing and played that point to the best of our ability.”
Duke (11-10, 6-5 in the ACC) finished the match with a hitting percentage of .338—well above its season average of .232—and used a balanced attack led by Sklar to overwhelm the Demon Deacons (10-13, 2-9). The senior outside hitter combined with juniors Alyse Whitaker and Jordan Tucker and sophomore Cadie Bates for 57 kills and just 10 errors to bolster Duke’s offense.
“I’m really excited that we were able to have that many people be in double-digit kills and be that efficient,” Nagel said. “It’s a credit to our hitters trying to find a way to put the ball on the floor.”
After the Blue Devils rallied to win the first set, Wake Forest never had a lead in the second frame but was still able to keep it close. The Demon Deacons trailed just 21-20 late in the set, but Whitaker and Tucker responded with back-to-back kills to give Duke some breathing room and help take a commanding two-set lead.
Nagel’s squad could not close the match in the third set, though, as Wake Forest took the closely contested stanza 25-23. The Blue Devils scored two straight points to cut their opponent’s lead to 24-23, but Hanna Lee—who led her team with 16 kills—killed Duke’s hopes of a sweep with a spike near the right sideline. This snapped a streak of 16 straight sets the Demon Deacons had dropped to the Blue Devils, dating back to a five-set Wake Forest win in 2012.
During the third set and at times throughout the match, Duke struggled with blocking and defense. Nagel’s squad only had five blocks during the match with five blocking errors, and the Demon Deacons bested Duke in this phase of the game with 11 blocks and just three blocking errors. The Blue Devils’ failure to be a major threat on blocking attempts helped Wake Forest finish the match with a solid .255 hitting percentage.
“In the third set, they came out with great intensity—we knew they would—and they were just being more efficient offensively and moving the ball around. We were being less disciplined in our defense,” Nagel said. “We needed to wait a little longer on our block…and we just let them pick us apart a little bit. I felt like we were getting a little bit frustrated and we needed to tighten that up and be the attackers.”
Duke rebounded with a very efficient fourth set, finishing with a .514 hitting percentage to cruise to the victory. This was also Wake Forest’s most accurate set of the match with a .371 hitting percentage, but the hosts could not keep up with the Blue Devils’ relentless attack to force a deciding fifth set. Duke finished the contest with a flourish, getting five of its last six points on kills before senior setter Maggie Deichmeister won the match with a service ace.
“This team has continued to get better as the season’s gone on. We’ve had quite a few lessons to learn along the way, and one of them is understanding…we have to control the ball,” Nagel said. “We did a great job of that in that fourth set today, on our serve and then also on our first touches for serve receive.”
Duke will next take the court Saturday night on the road against Virginia, which defeated the Blue Devils in four sets earlier this season.
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