RALEIGH - For a full 10 minutes, Lauren Rice's eyes barely wavered from her fidgeting hands. Flanked by her coach and teammate Peppi Browne, the Peru, Ind., senior's downward gaze told only of the pain of falling on the wrong side of one of the ACC's wars.
Sitting silently in the Reynolds Coliseum media room, she might have realized that the evening's game was, as N.C. State coach Kay Yow seemed to think, a game for the ages, but more than likely all Rice knew was that the battle for ACC supremacy was N.C. State's and the night was all Amy Simpson's.
Simpson, the surprise star of the ACC's most heavily anticipated game, scored a career-high 26 points and a stifling N.C. State defense held Duke to 26.5 percent second-half shooting as the No. 6 Wolfpack (15-2, 6-2 in the ACC) snapped the No. 9 Blue Devils' (16-2, 5-1) nation-best winning streak at 15 and ended Duke's perfect run through the ACC with an 80-75 overtime victory in Raleigh last night.
"This was a great win for us and puts us right back in the race for the Atlantic Coast Conference [title]," said Yow, whose team had dropped two straight after starting the season a perfect 15-0. "This was a game we really needed."
A Simpson three-pointer with 1:11 remaining in overtime highlighted an outstanding night for N.C. State's reserve-turned-star, giving the Wolfpack a a 77-75 lead and all the margin it needed to secure its first win in six contests against the Blue Devils.
Simpson, who was averaging just 13.4 minutes a game coming into last night's contest shot 9-for-16 from the floor and drained four three-pointers, despite being tightly guarded by a rotating host of Blue Devils.
"She was huge tonight," N.C. State senior and reigning ACC player of the year Summer Erb said. "Amy came in and started taking over. She came in during the first half and got us back in the game, and she came in in the second half and never stopped hitting."
Duke had an opportunity to tie the game after Simpson's three-pointer, but sophomore Krista Gingrich was whistled for traveling with 52.8 seconds left. N.C. State let the shot clock dip below 10 seconds before Tynesha Lewis sent what would have been the game-ender clanging off the rim.
But N.C. State recovered the loose ball and Gingrich fouled Talisha Scates with 25.7 seconds remaining.
Scates missed the front end of the one-and-one, but fittingly enough, Simpson was there to gobble up the offensive rebound.
"They outhustled us," said Rice, who had fouled out earlier in overtime. "They wanted it more. At the end of a big game, you've got to be able to rebound."
And just in case it didn't look bad enough, Rice got to see it twice more.
Simpson drained her first free throw to put N.C. State ahead 78-75 with 25 seconds to play, but she sent the second attempt short off the iron, falling directly into Erb's hands.
Duke again fouled, sending Tynesha Lewis to the line with 14 seconds remaining and this time the Wolfpack miscued on both attempts, giving Duke a shot at sending the game into double overtime.
But Erb, who had played with four fouls since the 9:38 mark in regulation, corralled the third straight offensive rebound over the undersized Blue Devils. She then calmly sank her two free throws to send Duke out of Reynolds Coliseum as losers for the first time since 1996.
"[Erb] put the final dagger in our heart," Duke coach Gail Goestenkors said. "She did a great job of staying in. We took the ball at her, but she played a very smart game and stayed out of trouble."
Yet Duke barely made it to overtime.
After forcing the Wolfpack into a frenetic up-and-down running game in the first half, the Blue Devils' lost control of the game's tempo and the bigger, stronger N.C. State squad turned the game into a halfcourt battle.
And the Blue Devils' did little to help themselves
Leading 37-34 at the start of the second half, Duke promptly misfired on it's first 12 attempts, falling behind by 40-37 and failing to break into the scoring column until the 15:10 mark when Georgia Schweitzer, a non-factor in the game, sank an uncontested layup.
Duke's shooting would get even worse.
N.C. State's pressure defense kept smothering the Blue Devils' offense, as Duke made just one of its next eight shots, putting Goestenkors' team at 10 percent second-half shooting with 7:05 remaining in regulation.
"Their defensive intensity picked up incredibly in the second half," Rice said. "In the first half we could drive and kick it out, but in the second there was constantly someone in your face."
Just when the Blue Devils' cold streak ended, Simpson started heating up again. She drained two consecutive three-pointers and assisted on an Erb layin to put N.C. State up by six with four minutes left to play.
Peppi Browne answered back for the Blue Devils, scoring seven points and assisting on Duke's only other basket in a two minute spurt to bring Duke within one point at 66-65 with 1:22 remaining.
"Coach told us because the game that... we're a little bit quicker than their post players," Browne said. "We knew we'd be able to face up and take it to the basket."
The Blue Devils forced a turnover and Mosch drilled an open three to give the Blue Devils a two point advantage going into the game's final minute. But a Lewis jumpshot on the other end tied the game at 67 with 34 seconds to play, sending the game to overtime after Duke failed to connect on its final shot of regulation.
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