Yellow Jackets top Duke women's basketball 64-59, stinging Blue Devils' postseason hopes

Amber Henson’s Duke career has been marred by injuries, requiring six knee surgeries and months of rehab.

So it was sadly fitting that on Senior Day Sunday at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the injury bug struck again, hobbling Henson and several of her teammates as the Blue Devils desperately tried to close out its home slate with a win.

But the injuries, along with 22 turnovers, proved too much to overcome, and Georgia Tech dealt Duke a 64-59 loss, stinging the Blue Devils’ hopes of earning a bid to the NCAA tournament. Antonia Peresson led the Yellow Jackets with 20 points—including six of the team’s nine 3-pointers—and Georgia Tech grabbed 24 offensive rebounds that turned into 15 second-chance points, taking advantage of Duke’s lack of forward depth. Henson, Oderah Chidom and Faith Suggs all suffered injuries, but Henson and Chidom later re-entered the contest.

“It was a tough game, a hard-fought game, a very physical game. There are some really good things throughout, [but] we just didn’t quite put it together in the sequence that we probably needed to,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “Obviously very, very disappointing on Senior Day, with Mercedes [Riggs] what she has given to the program, and Amber what she has given our program over her time.”

With the game knotted at 43 heading into the final quarter, the Yellow Jackets (16-11, 6-8 in the ACC) came out roaring, taking a nine-point lead midway through the period. But the Blue Devils (18-11, 7-8) did not quit, continuing to chip away at the Georgia Tech lead, bringing the deficit to as little as three points on multiple occasions. Freshman point guard Angela Salvadores scored six straight points to trim the lead to 58-55 with 1:51 to go, and Chidom answered two Peresson free throws with a lay-up.

But the Yellow Jackets made six of their eight free throws in the final 30 seconds to deny Duke a comeback victory.

Battling for every inch both offensively and defensively, four of McCallie’s players had to be helped off the court during the course of the game. Salvadores and Henson were hobbled by previous injuries, Suggs sat down after taking an elbow to the head fighting for a defensive rebound and classmate Crystal Primm needed assistance after suffering a leg injury. Six of the nine available Blue Devils played through injuries Sunday, with Riggs, Kyra Lambert and Erin Mathias the only players physically unscathed at the final buzzer.

But the Blue Devils plodded on as they remain without leading scorer and rebounder Azurá Stevens—sidelined for the sixth straight game by a torn plantar fascia in her left foot. The defense clamped down, limiting Georgia Tech to 29.6 percent shooting from the field, but Duke’s turnover woes and inability to rebound enabled the Yellow Jackets to attempt 23 more shots than the Blue Devils.

Duke appeared well on its way to a win midway through the first quarter, jumping out to a 10-0 lead behind the shooting of Salvadores and redshirt sophomore Rebecca Greenwell. Georgia Tech shot 1-of-17 in the opening period, but settled into a rhythm defensively by employing a half-court trap that gave Duke fits. Duke’s guards struggled to handle the Yellow Jacket pressure, as the Blue Devils went nearly 10 minutes without scoring. Georgia Tech fed off of Duke’s nine first-quarter turnovers, using a 23-5 run to grab a 23-15 lead midway through the second quarter.

But in a game of runs, the next one belonged to the Blue Devils, who ended the half on a 13-6 spurt and trailed by just one going into the locker room. Salvadores and Greenwell combined for 19 of Duke’s 28 first-half points, and finished with 19 and 16 points, respectively.

“It was great to see people come back and fight and it was great to see people step up when others couldn’t. That’s an important part in the team,” McCallie said. “Starting at 10-0 was fantastic, but we just really didn’t handle that well. We didn’t handle that. We didn’t continue to attack in the same way, turned the ball over and got a little careless, and then you go from there.”

The margin could have been worse, but Duke clamped down on forward Aaliyah Whiteside, who entered as the ACC’s leading scorer at 20.2 points per game. The senior had just two points at halftime and eight for the afternoon, but Peresson stepped up in her place and 16 first-half Blue Devil giveaways kept McCallie’s squad from developing a consistent offensive rhythm.

Duke will have a full week of rest to get healthy before traveling to Chapel Hill to take on North Carolina next week in the regular season finale.

“I think we just need to take this week and really focus on the important aspects we need to work on—turnovers, especially, we need to value the ball more. We can’t have games in which we have 20 or more turnovers anymore,” Greenwell said. “We know what it feels like when we’re playing well together. [We need to work on] the intangibles.”