On a memorable Senior Day, the departing Blue Devils played the role of spoilers Saturday, firing on all cylinders to conclude the season with a dominant win against the Tar Heels.
After trailing by one set early, Duke bounced back to upset No. 22 North Carolina in four sets (20-25, 25-15, 25-19, 25-16) at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Senior outside hitter Emily Sklar racked up her double-double with 17 kills and 17 digs and redshirt senior setter Maggie Deichmeister dished out a game-high 49 assists and added 14 digs.
“It’s really exciting to see them go out there and execute the way they did,” Duke head coach Jolene Nagel said. “To see the focus that they had out there and communication going in there, support for each other and the support for the whole team and the whole team to them was just tremendous and really special.”
Senior outside hitter Breanna Atkinson and senior setter Christina Vucich both achieved season-high kills with 11 and seven, respectively, and senior outside hitter Laura Williams added 13 digs to update her season-high as well.
The Blue Devils (17-13, 12-8 in the ACC) held a tight lead against the Tar Heels (20-9, 17-3) for most of the first set before North Carolina flipped the momentum after a Sklar attack error and mounted a 7-1 run to close the frame on a Victoria McPherson kill. Despite a lackluster .239 hitting percentage, the Tar Heels posted 19 kills to Duke’s 11 and held the Blue Devils to just a .119 hitting percentage.
But things started to go south for North Carolina’s attack in the next three sets, as Duke put up perhaps the best defensive performance all season to hold the Tar Heels’ hitting percentage below 0.020. In the fourth stanza, the Blue Devils shut down North Carolina entirely, blanking the Tar Heels with a .000 hitting percentage. North Carolina committed 30 attack errors and four service errors for the match, nine of which came in the decisive fourth frame.
“We all knew after that first set that we were capable of much more, and that we kind of gave that set away with miscues on our block, miscues on defense and we had to straighten that out if we want a chance [to win],” Nagel said. “We adjusted a little bit with our block, a little bit with our timing, also making sure defensively everyone was on the same page…I’ve seen them playing defense like that in practice, when they really put their minds to it. It’s also human nature to be able to do that every time you step onto the court. Today everybody else got to see them play defense like that.”
Duke hit the ball at a blistering .459 clip in the second frame and closed out the set by a 10-point margin. Junior middle blocker Jordan Tucker joined Sklar and Atkinson in double-figures with 13 kills, and freshman Leah Meyer added seven more.
The balance all around the court allowed Deichmeister plenty of options as setter, and her 49 helpers paved the way for the Blue Devils to avenge their straight-set loss in Chapel Hill earlier this season.
“We just had a lot of weapons out there today,” Deichmeister said. “We were able to spread it out really well. [It was] just a solid team effort all around.”
With exceptional performances both offensively and defensively, Duke dispatched the Tar Heels in the third set to go ahead 2-1. Despite a .125 hitting percentage in the frame, the Blue Devil defense rose to the occasion to finish the deal, 25-19.
The Tar Heels tried to crawl back in the fourth set. Trailing 7-5, they seemed to have a chance to force a fifth and final set. But Duke never gave them the opportunity, rattling off a 10-0 run to seize control of the match. Meyer hammered down her seventh kill of the match to clinch the victory with a 25-16 set win.
The Blue Devil victory derailed North Carolina’s hopes of sharing the ACC championship with Florida State and killed the Tar Heels’ 12-match winning streak.
“It obviously wasn’t a perfect season by any means,” Deichmeister said. “But to go out with a win on Senior Day against Carolina on your home court, you cannot ask for anything better.”
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