Coming off tough conference wins at home last weekend, Duke was unable to sustain the momentum in Florida this past weekend against ACC foes Florida State and Miami, getting swept 3-0 in both matches.
The Blue Devils (8-6, 2-3 in the ACC) lost to the Seminoles 25-20, 25-16, 25-19 Friday in Tallahassee and fell to the Hurricanes 25-22, 26-24, 25-20 in Coral Gables Sunday. Both teams proved a tough match for the Duke defense, as the two entered with the conference’s No. 1 and No. 4 hitting percentages, respectively.
“This is a really tough road weekend in that Florida State and Miami are both very good teams and will do very well during the season,” head coach Jolene Nagel said. “We knew before we came down that they would be good, and we certainly could see that.”
Sunday’s match against No. 20 Miami (13-1, 4-1) was a close one with the Blue Devils missing an opportunity to even the match score in the second set after the Hurricanes closed with a definitive kill.
“Miami played very well today, and we did some very good things, as well,” Nagel said. “We’re still developing as a team, and I saw some really nice things out of our team, and I saw some things we need to continue to work on.”
Duke did an effective job holding down the majority of the Hurricane’s offense, keeping Miami to a .221 attack percentage and allowing only two players to reach the double-digits in kills.
But the duo of senior Lane Carico and sophomore Alex Johnson—two of the ACC’s top hitters—made all the difference. The pair combined for 26 kills and 30.5 points of the team’s total of 48 and 62, respectively.
“They usually have all their hitters in pretty high numbers, but it looks like we contained one middle blocker and one outside hitter pretty reasonably,” Nagel said. “We need to work on containing at least two of the others, but it’s good to see we did some of that.”
Against No. 22 Florida State (11-4, 5-0) the Blue Devils looked weaker, but Nagel said the team learned from its mistakes, seeing a clear change in the team’s performance Sunday.
“I saw a great improvement between Florida State and [Miami], and there was a whole different team out there tonight,” she said. “We gave ourselves some chances that we didn’t give ourselves Friday night.”
Despite the back-to-back losses this weekend, the Blue Devils remain hopeful.
“It looks much bleaker than it is since we’re used to being successful, but it’s just that these two teams are very good this year, and we are still developing,” Nagel said. “It’s very exciting to see, and we’re excited to get back to work.”
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