WINSTON-SALEM--For only the second time this year, the No. 16 women's basketball team entered the locker room at halftime without the lead as Wake Forest held a 42-34 advantage. But as they have done time and again against teams that jumped out to an early lead, the Blue Devils were able to regroup and capture a 74-64 victory.
The problem for the Blue Devils in the first half was the inability to get production from their inside game. Junior forward Tyish Hall attempted two shots in the first stanza, missing both of them, while senior center Alison Day scored only five points, three of them on one shot from beyond the three-point arc. Wake Forest head coach Karen Freeman said she was more than aware of Duke's strong high-low game, and she wanted her team to concentrate on shutting down the low part. It did just that as the Demon Deacons forced Duke to commit 12 turnovers in the first half while outrebounding their taller opponents by four.
"We had a distinct size advantage on them," Duke head coach Gail Goestenkors said. "We knew we wanted to pound the ball inside and we weren't doing it. People who we wanted down on the block were on the outside, and that was not our game plan."
At the same time, Wake was scoring most of its points inside the paint, while Duke was forced to score from the outside. Senior Jennifer Scanlon kept the game close with three treys. Her nine points were tops for the Blue Devils in the first half.
For the Demon Deacons, juniors RaeAnna Mullholland and Tracy Connor scored eight points apiece and combined to pull down 11 rebounds in the opening half.
The best example of the Blue Devils' ineffectiveness came at the end of the first half. The Blue Devils had sliced the deficit to two with 1:15 left when Connor suddenly started to hobble and called for a timeout. She was forced to leave the game, and in her absence Duke had a chance to take grab the lead. Instead, the Blue Devils committed two turnovers during their last two possessions, and Wake scored six straight points to increase its lead to eight.
Connor's injury, however, eventually led to the downfall of the Demon Deacons as it limited their inside attack. She returned to the game early in the second half, but immediately picked up her third foul. Still, the Demon Deacons held onto their eight-point lead.
With just under 11 minutes left in the game, Goestenkors pulled freshman Payton Black off the bench in hopes of forcing Connor into her fourth foul. Besides doing that, Black stimulated Duke's inside game, as the Blue Devils cut a six-point deficit to one at the 9:59 mark.
"[In the second half], I think our post players did a much better job of getting more aggressive.," Goestenkors said. "Tye Hall--even though she didn't score--was much more aggressive in the second half. We got her down on the block a little better.
"Payton Black came off the bench, and she does a great job posting up. Our guards did a good job getting the ball into her and she just attacked the basket."
In one stretch in the second stanza, Black hit a layup, blocked a shot on defense and then came back and hit another layup. Overall, she had 10 points in nine second-half minutes.
"I went in with the mindset I had to take the ball strong to the basket and make sure that I rebounded strongly," Black said. "I felt I was able to take the ball to the basket, and it opened up a couple of things for us."
Beside Black's play off the bench, the other factor that stymied the Demon Deacons was Duke's switch to a matchup zone midway through the second half. Wake went cold from the outside and was unable to recover late in the game.
"We've looked at many matchup zones before today, and none of them affected us like Duke's did," Freeman said. "I think it was the point in the game that they went to that zone that hurt us."
The Blue Devils captured their first lead of the second half on a Hall layup with 5:35 left in the game. Duke never trailed again, although the game was close up until the very end. Junior Kira Orr went to the free throw line shooting a 1-and-1 with 36.3 seconds left in the game. It was the same scenario Orr and the Blue Devils have faced in their last four games. She missed. Fortunately, the Demon Deacons failed to score again, and the Blue Devils didn't miss another free throw. Orr hit four straight after her miss, and Day clinched the game with two free throws of her own. Once again, Goestenkors was pleased with her team's effort in the clutch.
"It's two games in a row that where we've hit our free throws down the stretch," Goestenkors said. "I think that we're feeling much better about ourselves in end-of-game situations."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.