Tucker reaches 1,000 career kills, leads Duke volleyball past Virginia in 4 sets

<p>Senior defensive specialist Sasha Karelov led the Duke defense with 31 digs Saturday.&nbsp;</p>

Senior defensive specialist Sasha Karelov led the Duke defense with 31 digs Saturday. 

Senior middle blocker Jordan Tucker breezed past a career milestone Saturday in front of her grandparents and the home crowd at Cameron Indoor Stadium, lifting Duke to its ninth win in 10 games.

Tucker became the 24th Blue Devil ever to notch 1,000 career kills with her eighth kill in Duke's 25-20, 28-30, 25-23, 25-20 victory against Virginia, and finished with a match-high 17 kills. The crowd roared when the public address announcer acknowledged the feat after the milestone kill, but the announcement surprised Tucker, who was oblivious to the potential accomplishment until Saturday morning.

“Earlier this week when we played Wake, one of the coaches was like, ‘Are you close yet?’” Tucker said. “I had no idea what he was talking about, and I was like, ‘Yeah, we’re close, it’s 45 minutes away.’ I thought he was talking about our travel time.”

Tucker finally found out what everyone was talking about when her grandparents told her she was close to 1,000 kills entering the match, but she still didn’t know how close she was until she buried a kill to reach the mark and put the Blue Devils (13-5, 7-1 in the ACC) in front 19-14 in the second set.

“It’s something that I’ve seen past teammates do, and we see it on banners and stuff like that,” Tucker said. “You say freshman year, ‘Oh, this would be so cool if I did it,’ and now I’m here senior year and can check that one off the list.”

Things went south for Duke for the rest of the second set after the kill, though, as the Cavaliers (4-16, 1-7) won six straight points to rally from a 20-15 deficit and take a late lead.

Duke recovered to earn a set point at 24-23 after back-to-back kills by freshman outside hitter Samantha Amos, but Virginia fought off five Blue Devil chances to close the set as the teams alternated points until the score was even at 28. An attack error by Amos gave the Cavaliers their first set point, and they capitalized when a lob over the net by defensive specialist Lexi Riccolo landed in the middle of Duke’s side of the court to even the match at one set apiece.

The Blue Devils hit just .086 during the second set, with 12 of their 22 attack errors of the match coming during the frame.

“We did let that slip away, and they were a little bit on each other, and so we had to just go back and restore working together, because there certainly was some frustration there,” Blue Devil head coach Jolene Nagel said. “You’ve got to commend them for playing with that kind of passion, so once we could regroup, they channeled it really well.”

Duke trailed 11-8 in the third set, but halted Virginia’s momentum with five straight kills to take a 13-11 lead. The Cavaliers stayed close throughout the frame but never evened the match, and when the Blue Devils had a 24-23 lead for the second straight set, Tucker shut the door on Virginia’s hopes of a rally with a strong kill.

Nagel's team controlled the fourth set to coast to the victory, rattling off five straight points to take a 5-1 lead and never letting the Cavaliers come within a point the rest of the way. Amos had two late kills to match her career-high of 14 and has now reached double figures in kills in three straight games.

Amos was not the only newcomer who shined Saturday. Freshman setter Cindy Marina had 16 digs and added a career-high nine kills with a hitting percentage of .533, keeping the defense off balance with a few surprise attacks when she was in position to set up her teammates.

“It’s so awesome to have young players especially come in and feel comfortable and do big things,” Tucker said. “Everybody’s really been working to be on the floor and just keeping our offense rotating on all cylinders as much as we can.”

Six Blue Devils had at least eight kills, including junior Cadie Bates, who took the floor for the first time in more than two weeks due to injury.

Virginia’s attack was less balanced, with just two players tallying more than nine kills, and the Cavaliers lost of their biggest offensive threats when Alex Thorson—who had 15 kills in their loss to Duke earlier this fall—left the game with an injury in the second set.

Seniors Haley Kole and Jasmine Burton stepped up with 15 kills each, but it took Kole 73 attacks to reach that total, as senior Sasha Karelov anchored the Blue defense with 31 digs.

“There are some big numbers with digs and the number of attempts that some of the kids got,” Nagel said. “We did want to control that ball so we could do something with our offense, so I’m really excited we could push through and gut it out to get this win tonight.”

Duke will wrap up the first half of the conference schedule next weekend at home against Clemson and Georgia Tech, hoping to improve to 9-1 in ACC play.

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