This weekend, Duke heads to senior Jourdan Norman's hometown of Dallas, Texas, to compete in the Hilton Invitational, hosted by UT-Arlington.
Each match the Blue Devils play, Norman inches closer to the all-time Duke blocks record, but the pressure hasn't yet affected her.
"I don't really think about it much," Norman said, "It's an honor if I do break it, but I just go out and play. It's not a big deal."
For Duke head coach Jolene Nagel, though, Norman's career record and prospects of breaking the record is more significant.
"I'm excited for Jourdan to play in the area she is from-to get to play in front of her high school coaches and teammates from club volleyball," Nagel said.
The Blue Devils (4-2) are coming off a win at the Duke Invitational last weekend in which they stormed back from a two-game deficit in the final to beat Georgia.
And now that they are used to playing matches again, Nagel said it is important for them to stay focused-just like Norman, one of their leaders.
"We need to keep like we ended the last tournament, playing with intensity and confidence and keeping the momentum going," Norman said.
This weekend, after a dominating performance at its own tournament, Duke once again travels to face fierce competition.
The Blue Devils look forward to facing another ranked opponent after dropping their first two matches to then-No. 25 Purdue and then-No. 14 Kansas State.
"They were strong competition, and we couldn't scrimmage another opponent before the matches," Nagel said. "It was important for us to settle down and get rid of our first-game jitters."
Those early-season woes caused the Blue Devils to start 0-2, but they won the closing match of their first tournament and have not looked back since.
That string figures to continue in the Blue Devils' first two matches against host UT-Arlington (3-5) Friday at 8 p.m. and South Carolina State (1-7) Saturday at 1 p.m., but No. 13 Middle Tennessee State (6-0) at 8:30 p.m. will be another story.
The final match of the tournament against MTSU will be even more challenging for the squads, because both teams have games earlier in the day Saturday. Middle Tennessee plays South Carolina State at 6 p.m. and has a quick turnaround against Duke later that night.
"It is a challenge," Nagel said. "In that situation, we try to play a lot of people to get everyone game time and make sure no one gets too exhausted. We end up learning a lot more about our team from having everyone compete."
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