During an unusual early-morning matchup, the Blue Devils played like they woke up on the wrong side of bed.
Duke fell to Syracuse 25-14, 25-22, 18-25, 25-20 Friday morning at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Orange's experience and senior leadership was too much to handle for the Blue Devils, as outside hitter Silvi Uattara posted 17 kills and 13 digs to spearhead the victory. The loss comes during a desperate time for a Duke squad that ranks 87th in the RPI and is making a late-season push toward its ninth NCAA tournament appearance in 10 seasons.
The opening points of the match displayed both teams’ reactive defenses, leading to several long rallies and caused an early tie at two points apiece. As the set progressed, though, Syracuse’s impressive offensive attack began to outperform Duke’s. A powerful kill by Uattara allowed the Orange to pull to an 7-2 lead, forcing Blue Devil head coach Jolene Nagel to call her first timeout of the morning.
“We are just not mature enough as a team mentally to play the game of volleyball the way we need to play at a high level all the time,” Nagel said. “We’re not there yet. Hopefully, some of our kids will begin to understand that so that they don’t have inconsistencies in the mental part of their game in order to compete.”
Coming out of the timeout, Duke’s struggles continued as Syracuse (19-7, 10-5 in the ACC) stretched its lead to 10-2 after a controversial out-of-bounds call on a Leah Meyer attack. The Blue Devils’ hitters were continually troubled by the Orange’s versatile block—statistically the fourth-best in the nation—that caused five different Duke hitters to register attack errors in the first frame.
Syracuse’s front line tallied three stuffs in the first set and continued to assert its dominance throughout the match, eventually notching 13 blocks on its way to victory. The combination of the Orange’s high-performing block along with 14 kills from their hitters allowed Syracuse to cruise to a 25-14 first-set victory.
The Blue Devils (13-12, 8-7) began the second frame much stronger than the first but ended up with the same result, falling 25-22. Meyer came out strong with two kills and a block-assist to bring the set to a 6-6 tie, but Duke never took the lead in the stanza after that point. Nine kills between senior Emily Sklar and junior Jordan Tucker helped the team to hit .216—more than triple the squad's .060 hitting percentage from the error-filled first set.
“It was a different kind of scene today, playing so early,” Tucker said. “But I think overall, we just weren’t finishing plays today. When somebody was getting a really good up, we weren’t necessarily taking the ball the way we needed to, little things like that.”
Coming out of the intermission, the tables turned briefly in the Blue Devils' favor. Duke’s hitters were aggressive as the group found holes in an Orange team that was plagued with mistakes on both offense and defense. Five more kills by both Sklar and Tucker—who had a team-high .355 hitting percentage during the match—allowed the team to hit .275 in the third frame as Syracuse's attack percentage fell to .086 as the Orange recorded six hitting errors.
Duke only had three blocks the entire match, but two of them came during the third set thanks to the efforts of Sklar and freshman Leah Meyer.
“We’ve been in the situation before [where] we’ve been down two and been able to come out and win in five,” Tucker said. “We knew we were capable of that, and we really just committed to working really hard and making that final push in the third set, which I think was the main reason why we won.”
Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, Syracuse returned to its earlier form as the fourth set arrived. Five different players registered kills and contributed to a match-high .381 hitting percentage. Uattara led the frame with seven kills, including the final blow that allowed Syracuse to close the match with a 25-20 win. Duke’s defense recorded 21 digs during the set—a team-high for the match—but it was not enough to counter Syracuse’s powerful attack.
Nagel emphasized that the team’s troubles Friday were much more mental than physical. For her, the team will need to improve its mindset quickly if it wants to succeed down the season’s home stretch.
“There’s glimpses of some really good things, but at the same time we’re just not sustaining that level all the time,” Nagel said. “I think that takes more mental energy than we’re giving right now, and I hope we mature and begin to learn that.”
Duke has another chance to find that level of mental energy at home Sunday against Boston College at 1 p.m.
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