Duquesne Dukes Volleyball Builds Towards Conference Goals

The Duquesne Dukes volleyball team rebounded from an 0-3 start winning three games this past weekend at the Duquesne/Robert Morris Invitational.

Two of those wins came against Indiana State and Youngstown State, both teams that previously were undefeated.

“It was a great step for us moving forward,” Dukes head coach Steve Opperman said. “When you come out 0-3 and this week you come out 3-0, it’s a nice opportunity for our kids to regroup and get some more confidence. They understand that we’re a good team, we just have to kind of workout the kinks and go from there.”

The Dukes are coming off a 20-10 2013 season and its first ever appearance in the NCAA Championship falling 3-0 to Kentucky. Opperman, who is now entering his 17th season as the team’s head coaches says the goal, as it is every year, is to win the Atlantic 10 Championship.

“Our kids understand we’re playing one match at a time,” said Opperman. “We don’t care who our opponent is, we’re not looking past anybody.”

The Dukes opened up the season with an 0-3 weekend falling to Cincinnati, Xavier and UC Irvine at the Queens Classic. This weekend marked the first matches on the home schedule.

Duquesne won its first match of the year 3-0 Friday against UMass Lowell [25-14, 25-13, 25-13]. In the match, the Dukes collectively had a 40 kills versus eight errors. Senior middle hitter Arielle Love and sophomore middle hitter Lacey Levers each had 10 kills to lead the team, while junior setter Mary Henry had 28 assists.

“It felt great to get our confidence back,” Love said on the win. “We have a couple new players on the team and have to get everyone on the same page.”

The new players Love referred to that are Liis Kullerkann, a graduate student from Keila, Estonia and Molly Davet a freshman outside hitter, both of whom are in the starting lineup. Are new to the team are freshmen Sydney Glover and Rachel Stack and middle hitter and defensive specialist respectively.

Duquesne was tested against Indiana State which came into the match with a 5-0 record. The Dukes took the first game 27-25 to start the match with momentum. In the second game, the Dukes had 11 kills and no errors in 27 total swings, a total attack percentage of .407. Duquesne was unable to win the third game, but won the fourth 25-17 to take the match. Davet led the team with 15 kills and the Dukes as a team had 50 kills for the match. Sophomore libero Sammy Kline and senior libero Patti Abshire each had double digit digs.

Its final opponent of the weekend was Youngstown State, a team that was 6-0 on the season and defeated Indiana State 3-1 Saturday afternoon.

In the first game, Youngstown State had zero receiving errors, using good first ball contact to take control of the points. Three Youngstown State service errors kept the Dukes in the game, but the Penguins would prevail 25-22.

“We keep hammering home that we need to be better on our first touches,” said Opperman. “We do drills in practice to allow us to try to first ball terminate off any transitional ball and if we can get a good ball and score right off that first ball, you’re going to put yourself in a good position to win.”

In game two, the Dukes outhit the Penguins and had an attack percentage that was .163 better than their opponents. It built a 14-9 lead and would win the game 25-19 to tie the match.

Youngstown State capitalized on 10 Duquesne errors in the third game winning 25-19, however once again momentum shifted in the fourth game.

With the score 5-2 in favor of Duquesne, Love had a block that fired up her bench as the Dukes reacquired momentum. After another block, this one from Henry, Youngstown State called a timeout.

“After that, you could kind of see their shoulder start to shrug a little bit,” Opperman said. “It looked like a few of their kids were getting tired, so we tried to attack them, especially when we were serving and that played to our advantage.”

Duquesne won the fourth game 25-13 to once again square the match and force a deciding fifth game.

The Dukes took a 3-0 lead early to force a timeout, however the Penguins drew to within 8-7 and 9-8 in the game. It was tyhen that Davet had two consecutive kills. That in combination with two Youngstown State attack errors gave Duquesne a 13-8 margin. It would win the final game 15-10 to take the match.

“Our kids dug deep when they needed to,” said Opperman. “We came out in the fourth set and emphasized to our kids that we needed to be the aggressors out on the floor. We can’t wait for our opponents to make mistakes, we just had to take it to them.”

As a team, the Dukes had a season high 66 kills and Mary Henry had a career high 59 assists, besting her previous best of 54 which was set September 28, 2012 at Saint Louis.

“She made great decisions and worked with the flow of the game,” Love said. “Youngstown State got a little tired in the fifth set and Mary kept moving the ball around and putting our attackers in a great position.”

Three Dukes made the all-tournament team in Davet, Kline and Love who was voted most outstanding player. Davet had 37 kills and 29 digs in three matches, Kline had 39 digs in three matches and Love compiled 41 kills and has 32 total blocks on the season.

Up next for Duquesne is a road contest Friday against Pitt as part of the Panther Classic. That match is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. The Panthers are 5-1 overall under second year head coach Dan Fisher.

“Pitt’s a good team and I think they’re going to pose some big problems for us,” said Opperman. “As long as we stay focused and disciplined like we did through the weekend, I think good things could happen.”