The volleyball team was teetering on the brink of a winless weekend.
Boasting a 5-1 record entering the Buckeye Classic in Columbus, Ohio, Duke started the tournament with a hard-fought five-game loss to Brigham Young Sept. 16. The next day, the Blue Devils (6-2) split the first two games with Pittsburgh, but then fell behind, 29-26, in the third game.
The Panthers (7-6) were one point from taking a decisive 2-1 advantage in the match, but Duke would not allow it.
The Blue Devils fought back, capitalizing on Pittsburgh's mistakes to erase the deficit and win the game, 33-31.
"The comeback in game three was huge," head coach Jolene Nagel said. "We came back hard two times to close out close games. Emotionally, we won those battles and that's big."
After the late rally in the third game, the Blue Devils cruised to the win in the fourth game, taking the match, 3-1. Led by setter Ali Hausfeld, the Duke offense hit .375 in the final game, the team's best single-game percentage of the weekend. Hausfeld finished the match with a career-high 75 assists.
"Ali did a tremendous job of using hitters that were having success," Nagel said. "She made great choices and spread the ball around a lot... It's a strength for us to be able to use all of our hitters to confuse an opponent."
Against BYU (7-0)-which later defeated No. 14 Ohio State to win the tournament-the Blue Devils quickly fell behind, 2-0, losing each of the first two games, 30-24.
Between the second and third games, the team met without Nagel in the locker room and then with the coach just before going back out onto the court.
"We needed to get a fire under ourselves to get ourselves going," Nagel said. "We knew we were more than capable of being competitive. It was definitely not a calm, cool and collected meeting by the time we got out on the floor again. I challenged the team: Are we going to be someone that lies down, or are we going to come back and let them know what we stand for?
"It's crucial for them to know they can come back like that, especially against a really good team."
Duke stormed back behind the play of several substitutes to take the third and fourth games. Middle blocker Carrie DeMange also played well against the Cougars, finishing with 22 kills and a .311 hitting percentage.
"By the third game against BYU we wanted to see if other people could change the game," Nagel said. "We subbed to give a different look and throw them off and the subs did great. It gives us more confidence to know that on a certain day, if someone's getting stopped someone else can go out there and do it."
The Blue Devils were unable to carry their momentum over into the deciding fifth game, however, and fell, 15-10.
"We made too many errors in game five," Nagel said. "In a 15-point game we had a service error, a reception error, a couple of hitting errors-and that's five points right there."
Despite only winning one of their two matches over the weekend, Nagel said the tournament was a success, especially in developing the team's depth. Twelve players contributed against BYU and 11 saw time against Pittsburgh. In the end, Nagel's only disappointment was missing the opportunity to play Ohio State-the Blue Devils would have played the Buckeyes if they had beaten BYU.
"We would've loved to play Ohio State," the coach said. "[But] these were some of the best teams in the country and we were right there with them."
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