After seven straight wins at home, the Blue Devils had no trouble hitting the road and downing Notre Dame in their first ever conference game against the Irish.
Although Duke fell behind early, losing the first set 18-25 and trailing in the second set by as many as five points, the Blue Devils stormed back to win three straight sets and clinched their eighth consecutive match Wednesday night in South Bend, Ind. Duke has not dropped a match since a Sept. 7 loss to Minnesota.
“We had to take a look at the different areas of our game to see if we could make some adjustments or maybe throw something different at them because what we were doing was not working,” Duke head coach Jolene Nagel said. “We just made a few serving adjustments and some other offensive adjustments against them so that they had to look at something different the last two sets.”
The Blue Devils (12-2, 3-0 in the ACC), played in their first ACC road match this season, but had little trouble handling the hostile Irish environment.
“I don’t think that [playing on the road] was a huge issue for us. It has been so nice to be home,” Nagel said. “The challenge was being on the road at Notre Dame in the middle of the week. It is a busy academic time at Duke. And they are a good team. I thought that our team handled the atmosphere fine.”
The Irish (6-8, 0-3) came into the game hoping to catch a break after a four game losing streak and dominated the Blue Devils early. Junior outside hitter Toni Alugbue led Notre Dame with 20 kills and 1.5 blocks. Alugbue also had a team-high .333 hitting percentage.
A trio of Duke hitters—Chelsea Cook, Jeme Obeime and Emily Sklar—accounted for a majority of the Blue Devil kills. With the Blue Devils trailing 21-19 in the second set, back-to-back kills by Cook—who recorded a career high 13—tied the score at 21 and swung the momentum Duke’s way, as the Blue Devils would go on to win the tight set 25-22.
“All three of them did a great job tonight. They were very effective,” Nagel said. “Chelsea, I consider such a hard worker in the middle, and it was great to see her be successful offensively tonight. She always is giving a great effort. Her kills tonight and her blocks were her great numbers."
Notre Dame played a close third set, but with the set tied at 24, Obeime registered a kill that brought Duke up to 25-24. Moments later, an attack error on the Irish gave Duke the 26-24 set victory.
Leading the match 2-1, Duke played a clean and solid fourth set to secure the 25-17 victory.
Duke improved on its hitting percentage from last weekend’s straight-set victory against Virginia Tech, going from .241 to .319 in Wednesday’s match. Junior setter Maggie Deichmeister’s 55 assists helped spark the Blue Devil offense.
“The outside hitters did a great job when we needed them to tonight,” Nagel said. “I was really pleased with them as well that they were able to take that load and get it done.”
Although unbeaten in the ACC, Nagel stressed that her team is focusing on one game at a time, but they are looking forward to returning home to take on Wake Forest Sunday at 2 p.m.
“We are going to get back to Durham and get back to work and improve on a couple of areas before we host Wake Forest on Sunday,” Nagel said. “But we are excited to get this one at Notre Dame.”
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