This weekend, Duke traveled to SMU and Pittsburgh in a set of matchups against two top-10 teams. The Blue Devils lost both contests in sweeps, falling to two of the best teams in the nation.
On Friday, Duke (9-16, 5-9 in the ACC) was hoping to build off of its momentum following a strong showing against No. 16 Georgia Tech and a victory against Clemson last weekend. The Blue Devils, however, weren’t able to meet the challenge of the Mustangs, falling 3-0 despite attempting to mount a comeback in the third set.
“These are two big opponents,” head coach Jolene Nagel said Sunday. “I mean, Pitt’s number one in the country, and SMU is top 10 as well right now. SMU had a very veteran team, they had five grad students on the court with one senior, and then Pitt is just an incredibly talented, physical team.”
The Mustangs (19-6, 11-3 in the ACC) might be one of the best teams in the country, but Duke sure gave them a scare in the third set. After losing the first two sets, the Blue Devils brought a buzz to the Moody Coliseum, hyping up the numerous Duke fans in the audience. Unfortunately for the Blue Devil faithful, the rally fell just short. In the pivotal set, Duke hit for its worst mark of the match, a meager .171 compared to the Mustangs’ .382 tally.
Despite these offensive shortcomings, the Blue Devils showed grit in the moments where it mattered the most. They extended rallies long enough to get SMU out of system and smack down a kill, or forced it to make errors with well-applied pressure and a strong defensive showing.
“The big thing is that I felt our team kept working very hard to be able to be successful and score points.” Nagel said. “ I just like the way they continue to fight for that in both those matches, and hopefully we're going to do that in practice this week. Just continue to fight to get better so that we can continue to grow as a team.”
Duke did find some working strategies that kept the game close against the Mustangs. Even in the sweep, the Blue Devils didn’t lose a set by more than nine points, in part to due a productive showing from middle blockers Ngozi Iloh and Breonna Goss.
“We tried to make sure offensively that we attacked the weaker blocker that they might have up there.” Nagel said, “And I think that was what we did. We were able to do that. The other thing that worked really well for us is when we could get the ball to our middles, they worked well.”
If recent strong fights against ranked opponents — including Friday’s — provided Duke with any hope they could scare the No. 1 Panthers Sunday afternoon, it was quickly stamped out. The Blue Devils were the victim of Pittsburgh’s 20th sweep of the season Sunday, with the Durham side not scoring more than 13 points in a single set.
The Panthers (23-1, 13-1 in the ACC) made Nagel’s team uncomfortable early, and never let the Blue Devils get their feet back under them.
“We just think we have to be able to control the ball a little bit better,” Nagel said, “I think we needed to do a better job of taking care of our serve and also our pass, so that our setters could get a better opportunity to get the ball to our hitters.”
Duke’s successes this season have come on the back of star outsider hitter Kerry Keefe, but Pittsburgh was able to smother her with its elite block, holding the Pacific Palisades, Ca. native to a .000 hitting percentage, notching seven errors to cancel out her seven kills.
Keefe has been Duke’s offensive engine this season, having tallied 341 kills this season, more than double runner-up Rachel Richardson. Six of her 341 came in Friday’s third set, and an efficient set from Keefe was a large part of why Duke kept it close with the Mustangs, as she only made one error.
The Blue Devils will learn from this weekend’s losses and look for a successful next go against No. 4 Louisville and a punchy Notre Dame.
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