No. 17 Florida State ends Duke volleyball's 6-game winning streak

<p>Sophomore middle blocker Leah Meyer posted a career-high&nbsp;21 kills in Friday's loss.&nbsp;</p>

Sophomore middle blocker Leah Meyer posted a career-high 21 kills in Friday's loss. 

The Blue Devils have made their mark this year by leading the ACC in digs and keeping their errors down to take advantage of their stalwart backline.

But in Duke's bid to earn its first win against a ranked team this year, the consistency that allowed the Blue Devils to turn around their season was nowhere to be found.

No. 17 Florida State ended Duke's six-game winning streak with a 3-1 (20-25, 25-16, 25-23, 25-20) win Friday evening at Cameron Indoor Stadium, holding the Blue Devils to just a .168 hitting percentage and taking advantage of eight service errors to recover after dropping the opening set. Although sophomore middle blocker Leah Meyer posted a career-high 21 kills and senior middle blocker Jordan Tucker had 13, their teammates struggled to consistently get balls over Florida State's tall blockers, combining for just 24 total kills and 20 attack errors.

The loss likely ended Duke's chances of winning an ACC championship, as the Blue Devils are now three games behind No. 6 North Carolina with three games left in the regular season. Duke is tied for second in the conference with the Seminoles, who earned the tiebreaker with Friday's victory.

“We just had a little bit more that we were capable of doing that we just didn’t do tonight,” Blue Devil head coach Jolene Nagel said. “We had some people step in there on the defensive end and do a good job, but tonight we needed a little bit more finesse in our offense in order to be successful.”

Although Duke (20-7, 14-3 in the ACC) struggled for much of the evening, the Blue Devils got off to a strong start in front of their home crowd. Sparked by three consecutive Chloe DiPasquale serves that resulted in Florida State attack errors, Duke jumped out to a 7-1 lead to start the match before putting the frame away 25-20 with two Meyer kills. 

But even with Meyer staying consistent, the Blue Devil offense fell off the rails in the second set to give the visiting team momentum.

Duke had eight attack errors in the set and just a .070 hitting percentage, never challenging as the visitors cruised to a 25-16 set victory to even the contest. Five Seminoles had at least seven kills led by Katie Horton's 18, and Florida State (20-7, 14-3) used its balance to keep the Blue Devil defense off balance the rest of the way. 

The third set featured 12 ties and six lead changes, but Florida State broke a 21-21 tie with a kill, block and Duke attack error before eventually closing out the frame to take its first lead of the night. The Blue Devils added eight more attack errors in the third set. 

“We had a lot of errors, and normally we’ve been really doing a good job of minimizing our errors,” Nagel said. “Tonight we just had too many service errors, hitting errors, we didn’t block enough balls and so we just didn’t give ourselves a chance.”

Duke's eight service errors were its most since a Sept. 10 loss to Loyola Marymount, and the Blue Devils got behind early again in the fourth set to make a comeback even less likely.

As it did in the third set, Duke fought back to pull within 21-20 before a 4-0 run sealed the win for the Seminoles, who stymied the Blue Devils with two players 6-foot-3 or taller blocking near the net. Meyer is the only Duke player that tall, and did not have enough help finding holes on Florida State's side of the net. 

“They blocked us a lot tonight, and I think as a middle [blocker] I need to draw the blocker more,” Meyer said. “[I also] need to block better in the front row against them. It’s tough, but they’re a really good blocking team.”

The Blue Devils will honor Tucker and the rest of their seniors Sunday before taking on Miami in their final home game of the year. Duke, which recently moved up to No. 59 in RPI thanks to two top-50 RPI wins, will close the season against the Tar Heels and N.C. State next week.

Nagel's team received top-25 votes this week for the first time this season, and might not be able to afford any more slip-ups the rest of the way if it wants to get back to the NCAA tournament after missing it in 2015. 

“[This game] hurts us, but I think the next couple of games we’re going to come back fighting even harder,” Meyer said. “That’s the biggest thing right now, and I think we can come back on top.”

Discussion

Share and discuss “No. 17 Florida State ends Duke volleyball's 6-game winning streak” on social media.