Volleyball coach Jon Wilson said that he has never seen as high a hitting percentage by a team as he saw this weekend during the Blue Devil's season-opening round-robin tournament in Georgia.
Unfortunately for Wilson and his Duke team, that superlative hitting performance was put on by the 15th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs in the championship game of the tournament, and the Blue Devils were on the receiving end of that barrage.
Georgia rode an amazing .407 hitting percentage and a game-high 26 kills from Priscilla Pacheco to a 15-13, 15-7, 15-7 win over the Blue Devils at Athens, Ga.
Duke had cruised past American University (15-6, 15-5, 15-8) and Virginia Tech (15-8, 15-7, 15-13) to reach the championship game against homestanding Georgia. But the Bulldogs of the Southeastern Conference offered much more competition to the Atlantic Coast Conference champion Blue Devils than American or the Hokies did.
"Georgia just did the job," Wilson said. "They put a lot more pressure on you than American or Tech does."
Duke played the Bulldogs closely in the long first game, but could not sustain any kind of pressure during the succeeding two stanzas.
"We played really well in clusters," Wilson said. "Then we would not play so good."
Wilson said that the Blue Devils played extremely well offensively, but since they had a shorter than usual preseason, the defense was not as effective.
Because a team must win the serve before it can play for a point, stingy defense in volleyball takes on added importance. Against Georgia, Wilson said the Blue Devils could not force the necessary side-outs to win the serve.
"We had trouble scoring because our defense wasn't where it need to be," Wilson said.
Two Duke players who could have helped the leaky defense but weren't at 100 percent were junior middle blocker Adrian Nicol and freshman middle blocker Kristin McMahon.
Nicol, at 5-10, was playing on a sprained ankle, and the 6-0 McMahon, also suffering from an ankle injury, did not see any action.
"Missing that kind of blocking was a major reason [Georgia was] able to hit like they did," Wilson said.
Individually for the Blue Devils, junior outside hitter Ashley Wacholder and senior middle blocker Jen Rohrig were named to the All-Tournament team. Wacholder tallied 44 kills and 20 digs in the three matches, while Rohrig was credited with 41 kills and 18 digs.
Sophmore setter Cappy Meyer had 99 assists during the weekend's play.
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