Preseason practice was winding down, and the players on the volleyball team were exhausted. They had been going through days of grueling two-a-day workouts in preparation for the beginning of the regular season, and little energy was left in reserve.
Still, the Blue Devils were scratching and diving for every ball, aware of the fact that the regular season would soon begin.
"Not bad for the preseason, huh?" volleyball head coach Jon Wilson said as his players took a quick water break.
Wilson is optimistic about the upcoming campaign, and with good reason. His team returns an experienced group of upperclassmen and adds three freshmen to a program that has won two consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference titles and made first-round appearances in the last two NCAA tournaments.
"It's a team that doesn't have to look at setting any lower goals," Wilson said. "We're not in a rebuilding situation. We're in a situation where we think we're going to go beyond what we've done before."
In order to maintain its streak of ACC excellence (Duke has lost one ACC contest in the past two years), Duke will have to fill the void left by graduated outside hitter Amy Verhoeven.
Verhoeven was a four-time All-ACC performer at Duke and is the school's all-time kill leader. Replacing her in the line-up is a daunting task, but the Blue Devils feel confident that they will succeed nonetheless.
"I think we'll be all right [with Verhoeven's graduation]," senior co-captain Jen Rohrig said. "I'm hoping for people who haven't played a whole lot to just get right in there. I've seen a lot of people gain confidence over the summer and last spring."
Leading the Blue Devils will be two players who competed this summer on a higher level, Rohrig and junior Ashley Wacholder.
Rohrig, a middle blocker, played with and against some of the best talent in the country in the U.S. Olympic Festival. There, she helped her team to a bronze medal.
"[The Olympic Festival] raised my level of play and gave me a perspective of higher volleyball that I haven't had before," Rohrig said. "It helped me gain confidence, get better at certain skills, get better at reading defenses, all that kind of stuff."
Last season, Rohrig was a second-team All-ACC performer and led the conference in blocks-per-game.
Wacholder, an outside hitter, led Duke in digs last season and was a first-team All-ACC performer. She was also second on the squad in kills (behind Verhoeven).
This summer, she played for the U.S. squad in the Maccabiah Games in Israel. There she competed against world-class volleyball players, including the Israeli National Team.
"It was a wonderful experience," Wacholder said. "Usually in the summer, you play a little bit. But I played for a solid month every day, so it helped a lot. And I played in a pretty competitive situation, so I think I improved."
Wilson was impressed by Wacholder's performance in preseason practices.
"Ashley's in really good physical shape, jumping better than I think she ever has and hitting the ball very hard," Wilson said.
While Duke will often look to these two players during the season, the depth of the Blue Devils will be an important factor in the team's success. Beyond Rohrig and Wacholder, there are others who have proven capable of succeeding against ACC and national competition.
Sophomore setter Cappy Meyer was the ACC Rookie of the Year last season and was eighth in the nation with 12.66 assists per game. She is the quarterback of the Blue Devil offensive attack.
"Last year [Meyer] came in as a freshman and we gave her a relatively simple offense to run, and she ran it very well," Wilson said. "Now we're giving her a very complicated offense to run, and she's doing a real good job."
Junior middle blocker Adrian Nicol was fourth on the team in kills last season and hit for an extremely high .324 percentage. She is presently nursing a slight ankle injury but should be ready to go once the season begins.
Senior outside hitter Janie Borcherding is coming off a rough junior season, but the co-captain had surgery on an injured shoulder and should begin to make bigger contributions.
Other returning letterwinners include two outside hitters, junior Briar Blach and sophomore Virginia Hall, and defensive specialist Tami Peterson.
The three freshmen, Kristin McMahon, Liz Neuhaus and Laura Krech, add depth and hope to make significant contributions to the Blue Devil cause.
"We expected that the freshmen would be good, and I think that all three are better than we expected," Wilson said. "As a group, they're very good."
McMahon sprained her ankle in preseason practice and may miss up to two weeks, but Neuhaus and Krech could see action right off the bat.
This season, for the first time as part of the conference schedule, Duke will play all ACC opponents twice, once at home and once on the road. This will limit non-conference games and will certainly intensify the conference rivalries.
"It's going to take a lot of concentration and aggressiveness, because we have to beat all the ACC teams twice," Borcherding said. "That will make it much more competitive."
Now that preseason practice is over and the intense workouts are tapering off, Duke is looking ahead to the regular season, which begins Sept. 3. The question is whether the Blue Devils will be able to aim their sights even higher after the success of the past two seasons.
"It's been the same thing for last year and the year before -- we lost first round in the NCAAs," Nicol said. "So hopefully, since the ACCs are at Duke, we can win here and then we can go further than we have the last two years in the NCAAs."
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