The Blue Devils are no strangers to five-set matches this season, and most of the time, they have fallen just short in the decisive set. But finally they made the plays down the stretch against the Panthers and rewarded the home crowd with a refreshing win.
After trailing by two sets early in the contest, Duke battled back to force a fifth frame, downing Pittsburgh (22-25, 21-25, 25-23, 25-19, 15-10) Friday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Junior middle blocker Jordan Tucker continued her offensive outburst, logging 21 kills and a .432 hitting percentage—her third career game with 20 or more kills and her sixth contest with double-digit kills in her last eight games. Redshirt senior setter Maggie Deichmeister added 57 assists to support the offense, and junior libero Sasha Karelov dived for 33 digs and hit a service ace at a critical point in the fifth set to put Duke ahead for good, 8-7.
“We’ve been down two sets before, and it didn’t go like this. This is not the end of story," Tucker said. "We were really adamant on coming out and changing that and being aggressive, going after it, staying together, not taking no for an answer. We wanted this win so bad that we’ve been working at it all year. We knew this was a big one for us."
Returning from a 1-1 road swing against Notre Dame and No. 25 Louisville last weekend, Duke (9-10, 4-5 in the ACC) led through the majority of the first set, with a hitting percentage well above .400 early on, forcing Pittsburgh (16-5, 6-3) into a quick timeout. But the Panthers bounced back and slowly closed the gap, tying the game at 21-21. Pittsburgh tightened up its blocking against the Blue Devil hitters and started to find some openings at the net itself, led by graduate student outside hitter Kadi Kullerkann. The Panthers grabbed the lead 22-21 on a Kullerkann kill and closed out the remainder of the set.
“We talked about it before going out there on the court,” Duke head coach Jolene Nagel said. “We had a good start, but we just had too many errors [late in the first set].”
Pittsburgh's momentum carried over into the second stanza—the Panthers hit the ball confidently at a .318 hitting percentage and built up a comfortable lead. The Blue Devils could not rediscover the rhythm they had early in the first set, as the Panthers led wire-to-wire to go up 2-0 and put Duke in danger of its second straight three-set loss.
Just like they were two weeks ago against then-No. 18 Florida State, the Blue Devils found themselves down 0-2 at home. Duke forced a fifth set, only to drop the decisive frame. But this time, the Blue Devils were determined to flip the script and walk away as winners.
Despite a .190 hitting percentage, Duke held a steady lead through most of the third set against a Panther squad anxious to close out the game. Pittsburgh cut the lead to 22-21, but Duke senior outside hitter Emily Sklar—who had a relatively quiet offensive night with 13 kills and 22 digs—stepped up with three huge kills and shattered the Panthers’ hope for an easy road win. The Blue Devils then went on to win the ensuing set, 25-19, to set up a fifth-set showdown once again.
Early in the final set, Pittsburgh seemed to hold the upper hand offensively, launching ferocious kills toward an overwhelmed Duke defense. Soon the Blue Devils were trailing 5-1, but after a short timeout, the momentum started shifting. Duke restored its offensive efficiency, evening the game at 7-7.
Karelov slowly walked toward her serving position, tapping the ball a few times on the ground to find the rhythm before sending the ball across the court. It was a flat serve, traveling across the net steadily before suddenly descending. Two Pittsburgh players threw themselves on the ground trying to lift the ball. But somehow it slipped through their hands and hit the floor, sending the crowd into a frenzy and handing Duke its first lead of the set, 8-7.
After that, Tucker took over. The Prairie Village, Kan., native delivered one kill after another to help Duke pull away. With the score 14-10, Deichmeister lifted her 57th assist into the air toward the hot hand, and Tucker struck it down as hard as she could to end the game with a decisive kill.
“The fifth set, we didn’t have a great start,” Nagel said. “So we really had to start to serve tougher when we had a chance to serve, and be more efficient in order to get back into that fifth set, because we were down by so much. I thought our team did a good job of that, serving tough when we needed to, and then being efficient with our communication and when we touched the ball so we can score some fast points there, because we were in a big hole for the fifth set.”
The Blue Devils will have a short break before resuming their ACC schedule against Virginia Tech Sunday. But first, they just wanted to enjoy the tough win.
“I’m so happy because we’ve played some really tough games lately and we haven’t been able to finish,” Karelov said. “For once we finished a five-set [game] and it’s such a good feeling. We never gave up. We were down 5-1 [at] first and we never gave up."
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