Indiana president Myles Brand wasn't the only one making waves in Hoosierland this week.
The Duke volleyball team found itself making some waves there as well, ending its pre-conference season with two wins at the Indiana Invitational, including an upset over the No. 20 team in the nation.
The Blue Devils (9-3) defeated Marquette easily in a 3-0 shutout Friday night before going on to an impressive 3-2 win over 20th-ranked Loyola Marymount Saturday morning in Assembly Hall. Duke, however, ended its seven-match winning streak with a lackluster 3-0 defeat at the hands of Invitational host Indiana.
That streak began in early September with a 3-0 win over High Point. Over the course of seven matches, Duke dropped only two individual games out of a total of 22.
But Saturday night it all ended, as Duke dropped more individual games in its match against Indiana than they dropped in the past two weeks. Chalk it up to fatigue, perhaps, or just plain passivity. The Hoosiers came out strong in the first game and promptly took a 15-8 victory.
"The team played hard but we weren't as smooth as we were in the morning match [against Loyola Marymount]," coach Jolene Nagel said. "We had opportunities in games two and three and we just weren't aggressive enough."
The Blue Devils were more aggressive in those two matches than in the first game. Duke led in the second game 14-10 but Indiana came back, halting the visiting team and scoring six points to take the game 16-14. In the final game, the Hoosiers swept the match with a 17-15 victory.
According to Hoosiers coach Katie Weismiller, Indiana's offensive diversity allowed them to gain the upper hand.
"Duke showed to be a good team but [Saturday] we had a lot of options offensively and that was the difference in the match," said Indiana coach Katie Weismiller. "We had very good competition both last night and today....We stayed focused and played well throughout the match."
Harris saw it from another angle, blaming the loss on Duke's mistakes. Harris said that while the Blue Devils could have beaten Indiana, blocking errors complicated the match.
"Blocking wasn't very consistent," she said. "It was just making things a lot more difficult. Everything just kind of went into a groove."
Despite the disappointing end to their weekend, the Blue Devils notched their first victory over a Top 25 team in their 3-2 defeat of Loyola Marymount. The win is encouraging for the Blue Devils as they begin their conference matches-no ACC team was ranked in the last USA Today/AVCA coaches' poll.
"It gives us a lot of confidence," Harris said. "We understand that we can perform with the Top 20 teams and that we should be up there. In the ACCs, we expect to do really well. I'm really excited and it does give us more confidence going into the ACCs and that's good for us."
The Lions took the first game 15-7, but lost the second 15-11 before taking the third by the same margin. Duke stalled their momentum with 15-8 and 15-11 wins to seal the match.
The fact that freshman Krista Dill led the Blue Devils with 18 kills while juniors Dorette Burwell and Bryn Gallagher followed close behind with 16, is further evidence that a combination of new talent and an improved game among returning players have given Duke a much stronger team than observers originally anticipated. Both Pamela Gottfred and Harris were selected to the All-Tournament team.
"I'm really happy that Pamela won because she played really, really well this weekend," Harris said. "Winning that award isn't as significant as the fact that we beat Loyola Marymount. But this weekend I was more proud about the way we came together."
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