CHAPEL HILL– In a crammed Carmichael arena, the crowd clad in North Carolina blue drowned out the announcement of Duke’s starting lineup with a raucous call-and-response of “TAR, HEEEEEELS.”
An hour-and-a-half later, Rachel Richardson swung, Jackie Taylor and Emani’ Foster met her at the net and the crowd went berserk one final time, exalting in another sweep of their hated rivals.
After losing Wednesday’s home matchup against North Carolina, the Blue Devils traveled to Chapel Hill hoping for a better outcome. Unfortunately for the Duke faithful, they got swept again in a dominant showing.
The officially listed attendance was 4,366, but during the game, one could have mistaken the crowd for 10,000. The Tar Heels jumped out to an immediate 11-5 start — characterized by clean defense and forcing the Blue Devils (6-9, 2-2 ACC) to make mistakes — and the crowd exploded when Duke head coach Jolene Nagel was forced to use her first timeout.
North Carolina (12-1, 4-0 ACC) finished off Duke in the first set, 25-19, and the two teams switched sides to try again. Once again, the crowd went wild.
But for a moment, the script was flipped. North Carolina had been dominating the net since the first set Wednesday, but in Friday’s second, Kerry Keefe started to take control. The junior outside hitter did it all for the Blue Devils in their hot start: digging, blocking and, most importantly, killing.
For the first time in the game, the crowd was quiet.
“I think she did her job with her decisions and offensively for us,” Nagel said of her star. “She blocked well. I think she did well.”
Unfortunately for the Duke faithful, all good things must come to an end. After taking a 14-11 lead, Mabrey Shaffmaster was looming for the Tar Heels, ready to take the service line. Following a kill of her own, the senior outside hitter served up four perfect balls in a row, forcing Nagel to call a timeout and once again spurring on the crowd.
Following Wednesday’s matchup, Nagel told The Chronicle that her team needed to have a better performance at the service line and in receiving to have success.
“That wasn't the issue tonight, except that [Shaffmaster] got on a run with her that topspin serve,” Nagel said of her team’s ability to receive. “That would have been nice to break that a little bit sooner.”
North Carolina took the lead and never looked back, eventually culminating in a masterful Shaffmaster serve that forced Duke into a discombobulated offense before Rachel Richardson made an attacking error to end the set 25-21.
And the crowd went wild, again.
The third set was all North Carolina, as the home side leapt out to a 10-2 lead. After her breakout weekend last time out, Grace Penn didn’t play as sharp. A bad set to put Duke down 0-5 prompted Nagel to replace her with redshirt freshman Nikki Quinn.
“Our team is very competitive among us, and we have the ability to make some adjustments,” Nagel said of the switch, “It's not like there's a big change in level, and there were some miscommunication mistakes at that time.”
With Quinn driving the offense, The Blue Devils fought to not go down by much more, but with the crowd at its back, North Carolina was overwhelming. When the contest eventually reached game point, the echoes of “U-N-C” on every dig, set, and kill attempt were overwhelming. Duke survived two match points, but the Tar Heels would have their way eventually.
And the crowd went … well, wild can’t begin to describe it.
North Carolina hasn’t swept Duke in three years, and to do so twice in a week, with the second coming at home, certainly brought the Tar Heel faithful to its feet. The Blue Devils, on the other hand, need to refocus for the rest of the season ahead.
“This is now the ACC schedule, and we’ll be away next week at Wake Forest and at N.C. State,” Nagel said of her team’s upcoming slate. “None of them are easy, but we don't have anything tomorrow or Sunday. So I think it's a great opportunity for us to get some work done, reset and then really go back to work hard next week.”
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