The independent news organization of Duke University
In the final game of the regular season, No. 1 North Carolina showed that it still has Duke’s number, handling the fifth-ranked Blue Devils 18-4, securing the ACC regular-season title and the top seed in the upcoming conference tournament in the process.
I didn’t expect to be in college during a pandemic, but I really didn’t expect to become a writer; after all, it was my older brother who had been the English major.
Nothing in the ACC comes easy. Road games are even harder. And Thursday night in Blacksburg, the Blue Devils came face-to-face with seeing their seven-game winning streak snapped.
History. The undisputed draw control queen. Maddie Jenner, take a bow. To start the third quarter, Jenner broke a record. With the 513th draw control of her career and her 142nd of the season, Maddie moved into sole possession of the Duke program record.
Coming out of halftime leading 17-4, Duke was in much the same position that they were coming out of halftime on Friday: maintain the 10-goal lead to keep the clock running, avoid injury, and get as much of the team involved as possible. And they were able to do just that.
“I was not expecting that kind of atmosphere and it was awesome,” said Duke head coach Kerstin Kimel. “
After making a run to the Elite Eight in their first NCAA tournament since 2016 last season, this year’s Blue Devils have their eyes set on even bigger goals—they want to win it all.
AJ Griffin had a quiet, but efficient first half, knocking down a three 12 minutes into the game and following it up with a floater in the last two minutes of the period. But that was just a taste of what was to come in the final 20 minutes.
In Duke’s first game back in two weeks and its first of three games in the next five days, the Blue Devils came out with the hot hand from the field, finishing with a 62% mark. Duke takes a 60-27 lead into the locker room, and here’s five of our observations from the opening 30 minutes.
The team’s last true road game came back in February 2020, when they played—and lost—at Virginia in front of 14,000 fans and, just like tonight, did it as a ranked team falling to an unranked one.
