The players on the Duke volleyball team (17-3, 9-3 in the ACC) entered this weekend with one goal on their minds: beat North Carolina (18-5, 10-2). Yet again, the Blue Devils fell short of defeating their rivals from Chapel Hill for the fourth straight time.
In a matchup with N.C. State (5-6, 1-11) Saturday night, Duke won in three games and moved to one game behind UNC, after the Tar Heels lost to Wake Forest.
Friday night, in Carmichael Auditorium, the Blue Devils and Tar Heels played evenly in game one until the last decisive points. Dorrette Burwell led Duke with five kills in the first game, many of which came at opportune times.
With the score dead-locked at 28-28, the Blue Devils made a few costly errors passing the ball, which led to a Tar Heel celebration after a 30-28 win. UNC's Nicole Reis had six kills for her team and took advantage of Duke's mistakes, something Duke coach Jolene Nagel points to as a key in the match.
"We didn't do a good enough job of capitalizing on opportunities that were given to us," Nagel said. "That would've made the difference in the first two games."
The second game was too similar to the first for the Blue Devlis, who again faltered in a late game situation. This time the score was 27-27, and UNC rallied to score three of the next four points and win 30-28 again. Both team's defenses stepped up in the second game, lowering the hitting percentages immensely. Duke outside hitter Ashley Harris had four kills in the second frame and talked about her team's mistakes in the match.
"We made a lot of service errors and our defense wasn't as strong as it had been in the past," Harris said. "We missed a lot of serves."
After two close losses, Duke had to regroup and win the third game or else the match would be over. UNC startled Duke with a surge to start game three, and jumped ahead 21-8. After five service errors by the Blue Devils, UNC was well on its way to winning the match. Duke made a run and closed to 28-22 but eventually lost 30-24. Sophomore Krista Dill, who finished with eight kills and seven block-assists, was left searching for reasons her team lost to UNC.
"I don't think we played every point 100 percent and that might have cost us in the end [of games one and two]," Dill said. "Overall the first two games were really close and we played well."
Duke traveled to Raleigh Saturday night to play the N.C. State Wolfpack in another ACC match. The Blue Devils struggled in game one, winning 31-29 against a team who has only won one conference match. During the break between games one and two the team had a meeting, which Dill talked about.
"We had a meeting as a team after the first game and the coaches talked to us about going after the win," Dill said. "We needed to get momentum back."
The Blue Devils worked in 13 of their 15 players during the match, many of them seeing action in the second and third games.
Burwell played well against N.C. State, tallying nine kills and 10 digs. After finishing off the Wolfpack by scores of 30-25 and 30-15 in the second and third game, Nagel looked at the positives that could come out of the weekend.
"I was pleased with the different personnel and the way we took care of business," Nagel said. "We took advantage of a lot of opportunities. We made things easy on ourselves by making the easy play."
Duke's greatest obstacle is still UNC, a team it will likely have to beat in order to win the ACC championships at Florida St. The team's morale is still high after this weekend's loss to the Tar Heels, but it must come to play this week if it wants to succeed in meeting its goals.
"I feel like our confidence is still high," Dill said. "It's hard because we know we should have beaten UNC. I don't know if it's the mental aspect that's holding us back because we haven't beaten them in so long. We know we're going to play them again."
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