ATLANTA - It wasn't pretty, but they'll take it.
After starting out slowly for the second consecutive road game, the Blue Devils used a late rally sparked by Hilary Howard and Peppi Browne to knock off Georgia Tech at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum, 58-55.
Duke looked flat for the majority of its last road outing, losing to unranked Maryland. Thursday night had all the appearances of a repeat, except for an inspired late-game run that gave the Blue Devils (16-6, 9-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) their first win all season after trailing at the half.
"I'm glad we came away with a win, because we certainly didn't deserve it up until that last part," Duke coach Gail Goestenkors said. "I'm very proud of the team in that they never gave up. It shouldn't have been a close game in the first place, but we needed to win a game like this."
The Yellow Jackets (9-13, 2-10) led by as many as 10 points in the second half and held a 49-42 lead with 5:45 remaining in the game. Duke's run began with an offensive rebound by Browne, who fed Howard for a pull-up jumper in the lane that turned into a three-point play.
Two consecutive baskets by Duke's Payton Black off of nice looks from Naz Medhanie and Georgia Schweitzer cut into the lead even further. Howard drilled a short jumper to give the Blue Devils a permanent lead at the 2:53 mark, then stole the ensuing inbounds pass and fed Browne inside to put Duke ahead by three for the first time in the game, 54-51.
"I think it was just our defense at the end," said Howard, who finished the game with 13 points. "We started pressing and got some steals, some easy baskets, and that just got us back into the game."
Even with Duke's late surge, the win wasn't sealed up until the final buzzer. It took two Nicole Erickson free throws to make the score 58-55, and Schweitzer stole a pass from Tech's Shelli Novotny in the game's final seconds that could have set up a tying shot.
Browne led all players with 12 rebounds, including six at the offensive end. She also scored 12 points, while Black came off the bench for 13 points and five boards. Erickson and Schweitzer struggled offensively for most of the game, shooting a combined 2-for-14 from the floor.
Georgia Tech's 28-27 halftime lead was built by the inside play of freshman Candice McCallum, who led all scorers in the first half with nine points, and classmate Regina Tate, who was a perfect 3-for-3 shooting before the break. Joannah Kauffman and Kenya Williams helped McCallum play a bruising inside game on a night when the officials seemed content to let the players play.
While the Tech forwards continued to bang in the second half, Kauffman made only one of her six shots and Tate shot just 3-of-12. And after containing Duke for more than 30 minutes, including a second-half span of nearly seven minutes holding the Blue Devils without a field goal, they were eventually solved defensively as well.
"You've just got to keep taking it at the basket and not fade on your shots," said Howard, who was victimized by a thunderous block by McCallum when she attempted a buzzer-beating fadeaway at the end of the first half. "We were trying to avoid contact, and at the end we started going to the basket and we were getting some of the calls."
McCallum led the Yellow Jackets with 13 points and seven rebounds, and Tate finished up with 12 points and five boards. Betsy Foy added 12 points, with nine coming in the second half.
Duke now enjoys a seven-day break before it hosts archrival North Carolina on Feb. 12. After pulling out an ugly win in Atlanta, the next week is shaping up as a time to refocus.
"I'm really glad that we have a week before our next game," Goestenkors said. "We're not doing the little things well, and that's playing good defense and rebounding, and those are two things that we had been doing very well. We need time in the gym to get back to basics."
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