Duke women's basketball pulls away from Blue Hose for comfortable win
Duke women's basketball pulls away from Blue Hose for comfortable win
Duke volleyball caps season with pair of home wins against in-state foes
Duke Takes Oregon State, 72-65
For some teams, three games in five days is too much to handle. But ultimately, that was not the case for the Blue Devils.
Fueled by strong play on defense, No. 16 Duke defeated Presbyterian 79-45 Sunday afternoon at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Blue Devils did not look back after a taking a double-digit first-half lead, with graduate student Rebecca Greenwell leading the way with 22 points. Duke maintained the lead for all but 18 seconds in the first quarter for its third straight victory and its 19th win in its last 20 tries at home.
“First half was not great. Nothing we were proud about, but the second half was very strong. It sent a strong message about the team and our focus at that point,” Blue Devil head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “To hold them to 17 points in the second half and to really work on our defense was great. Becca was attacking as usual. Very, very aggressive. I love to see that.”
Duke started strong by picking up the Blue Hose full-court and continued throughout the first quarter. Coupled with team defense, the Blue Devils displayed an array of passing which led to many open lanes. But Presbyterian countered with two triples to take the lead away from Duke briefly, and after the opening quarter, Duke led 15-13.
The Blue Devils recorded season highs in assists and field goal percentage against Presbyterian. As a unit, Duke shot 57.0 on 31-of-54 shooting from the field and 72.7 percent in the fourth quarter. Graduate student Lexie Brown led the team with seven of its 20 assists, but McCallie sees some room for improvement.
“Twenty [assists] is great, 25 is superb,” McCallie said. “I’m very happy that Lexie had seven, and again, no turnovers is fantastic.”