The early-season goal for the women's volleyball team was to compete against as many teams as possible to gain experience against different styles of play. The Blue Devils have gained plenty of experience, but unfortunately they may not like the experiences they are receiving.
This weekend in Knoxville, Tenn., Duke lost all three matches it entered to drop to 1-5 on the year. The Blue Devils' closest contest came on Friday night when it pushed Oregon to four games, 15-7, 9-15, 18-16, 15-12. Both matches on Saturday were three-and-out, as they lost to Tennessee 15-6, 15-6, 15-10 and George Washington 15-2, 15-12, 15-8. Since Duke felt it could be competitive at this level and possibly win all three matches, the results of the weekend were disappointing.
"It doesn't feel good at all," freshman Megan Irvine said. "We have to learn to take one game at a time, and we need to become more consistent. We have a tendency to start off slow and not give ourselves a chance to win."
The Blue Devils took themselves out of the matches with their offense. In the three matches, Duke was extremely inaccurate, hitting at feeble marks of .079, .085 and .098 compared to the .230 and .240 marks of its opponents.
"It was definitely a disappointing weekend," freshman Chrissie Lukasiewicz said. "We lost our focus, all three of those teams were beatable. We could have beat them, but when your focus isn't there, you can't do it. They won't fall apart for you, you have to beat them yourself.
"We had a lot of trouble terminating points. That's a key on the longer points."
Lukasiewicz was one of the few bright spots for Duke's offense this weekend. Lukasiewicz was nearly errorless as she had 16 kills for 34 attempts with only two mishits for a .411 hitting percentage. Irvine also showed some promise with 26 kills in three matches to complement the team-high 28 kills from sophomore Maureen Reindl.
Defensively, the team was solid, but not yet spectacular. In years past the defense could withhold almost any attack until the offense came through. The problem this year has been that the offense isn't coming through enough, putting too much pressure on the defense.
"We're working on being a scrappy team," Lukasiewicz said. "I think we started picking it up at the end of the weekend, but we still have a little bit to go. We do have the ability and talent, again it's that focus of staying in the game the whole time and going after every single ball."
In the end, while several players showed good athletic ability and played well individually at times, Duke is still trying to learn how to play with one another as a team.
"As time goes on, we're becoming more familiar with one another," said Irvine. "It will take a few more practices and games, but we're getting a better sense of where we're all supposed to be at on the court.
"I just hope it clicks soon, if we keep practicing like we are, it will come together. I think we'll have it down by the beginning of the [Atlantic Coast Conference] schedule."
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