Duke sophomore outside hitter Elizabeth Campbell and North Carolina sophomore middle blocker Victoria McPherson were named Atlantic Coast Conference volleyball co-Players of the Week, after each powered their teams to a win against a ranked opponent.
In addition to Campbell’s honor, Blue Devils’ defensive specialist Sasha Karelov scored Freshman of the Week honors.
McPherson, who helped the 14th-ranked Tar Heels extend their program-best start to 11-0, was instrumental in a 3-0 sweep of then-No. 16 Illinois on Friday and a victory over Indiana on Saturday in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. For the weekend, McPherson averaged 2.71 kills per set, 1.43 blocks per set, 0.71 digs per set and had a hitting percentage of .368.
Campbell totaled a team-high 36 kills over the weekend, leading Duke to wins over then-No. 16 Illinois and Indiana in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. The Parker, Colo., native averaged 5.14 kills per set and also led the Blue Devils with a .338 hitting percentage.
Campbell hit a match-high .478 versus Indiana, knocking down 13 kills, while also contributing seven digs, three blocks and a service ace. She followed that performance with a 23-kill effort against the Illini, helping Duke to its first win over a ranked opponent since 2011. She registered three blocks and added 11 digs against the Hoosiers to pick up her first double-double of the season.
Karelov was a key component in Duke’s victories over Indiana and then-No. 16 Illinois. For the weekend, she was second among Duke players, averaging 4.43 per set, and helped the Blue Devils limit the two teams to a combined .138 hitting percentage. She posted nine digs in Duke’s sweep of the Hoosiers on Friday evening, then totaled a career-best 22 digs in the Blue Devils’ victory over the Illini. On serve receive, she committed just one error in 34 chances over the two matches.
Six Carolina Hurricanes players have been assigned to the Charlotte Checkers of the American Hockey League (AHL). Forwards Nicolas Blanchard, Zach Boychuk, Aaron Palushaj and Jared Staal; defenseman Michal Jordan; and goaltender Justin Peters, will join Charlotte’s training camp which opened Monday at Extreme Ice Center in Indian Trail, NC.
The Carolina Hurricanes open their 2013-14 season on Oct. 4 at PNC Arena against the Detroit Red Wings. Individual game tickets for all Carolina Hurricanes exhibition and regular-season games are on sale at the PNC Arena Box Office and via Ticketmaster. For information on 2013-14 Hurricanes ticket packages, please visit www.CarolinaHurricanes.com, or call 1-866-NHL-CANES.
The ACC announced the following game times and networks for Saturday, Oct. 5, including a doubleheader involving NC State on the Regional Sports Networks (RSN).
Ball State at Virginia, RSN, 12:00 p.m.
North Carolina at Virginia Tech, ACC Network, 12:30 p.m.
Army at Boston College, ESPN3, 1 p.m.
NC State at Wake Forest, RSN, 3:30 p.m.
Also, the Miami at North Carolina game previously announced for Thursday, Oct. 17, will have a kickoff time of 7:45 pm.
It took a near-perfect game to keep the Bulls from adding to their 2013 trophy case. The Omaha Storm Chasers used shutdown pitching and stellar defense to win the Triple-A National Championship Game 2-1 on Tuesday night in Allentown, Pa.
Before the game, Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo posted his starting lineup on the clubhouse bulletin board with a special message at the bottom.
“Note: Congratulations on a great year,” Montoyo wrote to his team.
The Bulls won 87 games in the regular season, third most in franchise history, and lost just one playoff game en route to their fourth Governors’ Cup title. It was fitting that a season filled with some of the most dominant Bulls pitching performances in memory ended with a brush with perfection, even if the pitcher was wearing the other jersey.
Omaha starter Chris Dwyer pitched 6.2 perfect innings before Tim Beckham broke up the perfect game with a clean single to right in the seventh.
For the Bulls, Jake Odorizzi struck out 8 batters in 4 innings, continuing a historic postseason. Odorizzi set team records for most innings (18) and strikeouts (24) in a postseason.
Omaha managed to accomplish something that Indianapolis and Pawtucket couldn’t, however. The Storm Chasers scored off of Odorizzi. After 15.2 postseason innings without a run, and 29.2 scoreless innings overall, Lane Adams hit a two-out double in the second and scored on Manuel Pina’s single up the middle.
It was the first run allowed by the Bulls in 30.2 innings, going back to game two of the Governors’ Cup finals against the PawSox, and with Dwyer next to unhittable, it would be enough.
I.L. Most Valuable Pitcher J.D. Martin relieved Odorizzi and kept the Bulls within striking distance, pitching four innings and allowing one run. Martin’s 16 wins were the most in the last 45 years of Durham baseball.
Team MVP Leslie Anderson got the Bulls on the board with a pinch-hit home run to right in the eighth inning. It was the team’s first pinch homer of the year.
Mike Fontenot’s scorching liner was then caught by pitcher Michael Mariot to end the inning, the second straight at bat where Fontenot was robbed of a hit by Omaha’s defense. CF Paulo Orlando ran down a gap shot that looked like extra bases in the sixth.
The Bulls refused to let the season end easily in the ninth. Cole Figueroa singled and Beckham walked, putting the winning run on base. Zach Jackson struck out Vince Belnome to clinch the crown for Omaha and end a Bulls season that won’t soon be forgotten.
Mike Minter.Former Carolina Panther standout and current Campbell head coach Mike Minter speaks at the Wednesday, Sept. 18 lunch meeting of the Raleigh Sports Club. The public is invited.
Minter is an American football coach, retired safety and businessman. Minter is currently the head coach of the Campbell Fighting Camels and played from 1997 to 2006 with the Carolina Panthers. Minter attended the University of Nebraska, where he was a member of both national championship teams of 1994 and 1995.
In the Panthers’ appearance in the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots in 2003, Minter ranked second on defense and equaled a career high of 18 tackles. Despite breaking his left foot in the third quarter, he stayed in the rest of the game.
Apex High School football player Jason Lockamy will be honored as the Student Athlete of the Week.
The Forks Cafeteria caters our delicious Southern Buffet. Buffet lines open early this week at 11:30 am. The meeting starts at 12 noon and generally concludes by 1 p.m. Meeting location is Highland UMC (Bradley Hall) at 1901 Ridge Road at the intersection of Lake Boone Trail, just inside the Raleigh Beltline.
Annual Dues for the 2013 – 2014 season are $60. Members’ weekly attendance fee is $15 while guest fees for members of the public are $25.
There are a bunch of high school football games being played on local soil today – Friday, Sept. 13 – including highly ranked Leesville Road traveling to Athens Drive and Cardinal Gibbons going a few miles over to Broughton for the 99.9 radio game of the week.
Most area high school football teams are playing their fourth games of the season and most games start at 7:30 pm with a few beginning at 7. Try to make a point to get out there and support high school athletics this season. Temperatures tonight will be around 72 and it will be partly cloudy but no chance of rain. My record in picking games last week was 9-3 for a season record of 29-8. Below, the predicted winners for this week are in bold.
Local games Cardinal Gibbons at Broughton
Cary at Garner
Cedar Ridge at Riverside Cleveland at Green Hope
East Wake at Heritage
Graham at Orange
Jordan at Panther Creek Knightdale at Enloe Leesville Road at Athens Drive Millbrook at Northern Durham
Northwood at Carrboro Sanderson at Holly Springs Scotland County at Southern Durham Wakefield at Southeast Raleigh West Johnston at Fuquay-Varina
Nik Sade.NC State has had some adversity, especially with a starting QB going down and young guys making turnovers and mistakes. But the Wolfpack is 2-0 – thanks in large part to a kicker.
Against Richmond, the Pack got behind because of turnovers but came back in the second half to get within striking distance of the Spiders. “We found away to get the ball in the second half with two turnovers that we forced and gave our kicker a chance,” first-year coach Dave Doeren said. “Nik Sade has really been strong for us in the first two games. So we gave him a chance to win the game, and he did.”
Sade is 5-for-5 in field goals this season and his kickoffs are better than last year. This season so far, 12 of his 15 kickoffs have been touchbacks – that’s almost 87 percent compared to his 60 percent last year.
Q. It’s tough to say 444 yards total offense is not great, but it was kind of a step back from week one. Was that a function of their defense, the turnovers or something else at work there?
COACH DOEREN: I think we had a lot of drives that you look at the drive charts, and we had a lot of long drives that ended up with not enough points. Whether it was having to settle for a field goal or a turnover or a penalty that killed a drive, we just didn’t finish drives the way we did in the first game. So it’s definitely, like I said, our hat is off to Richmond. Their defense last year, they were number one in the nation at heir level with turnover margin, they had 24 interceptions a year ago. So we knew they’d be opportunistic, and we couldn’t make
mistakes. Unfortunately, we played into how they played. They just lineup the right way. They play hard. They don’t make any mistakes. We weren’t as crisp. We, obviously, weren’t as detailed as we need to be taking care of the football.
Q. Can you evaluate how Pete Thomas did in his first full game as quarterback?
COACH DOEREN: Yeah, he played really hard. He made a lot of plays with his feet on third down. He was very accurate with the football. He made a couple mistakes. He threw the ball late over the middle that should have been intercepted and a scramble late in the game. He had a guy open and he underthrew it for an interception. I know it’s a game Pete will learn from, but I was really impressed with how he made plays with his feet and kept the chains moving for us in some pretty key times of the football game.
Q. Coach, in your look at Clemson on film, how scary do those guys appear to be?
COACH DOEREN: They’re very good. Obviously, not ranked in the Top 10 in the country without having great players and great coaches. We know we’re up for a very, very good football team coming in here. I think they return more
starters and lettermen than anyone in the league. So they’ve experience on top of talent. So we’re going to have to play our best. I know our guys have excited about the challenge.
Q. Some of the weapons they have, Tajh Boyd, Sammy Watkins and so on, is it more of a matter of containment rather than stopping them, I mean, they’re going to move the ball most likely. But how do you contain an offense like that and maybe so that they don’t convert on every possession.
COACH DOEREN: Yeah, well, first thing you’ve got to do is not give up big plays. You have to contend routes and tackle well in space. We’ve got to shed blocks and get more people to the ball. But they are going to make plays, like you said. To win the football game, they can’t be explosive plays that lead to points. We’ve got to be able to keep lining up and play and make some plays. We’ve got to be opportunistic on defense this week and continue to
force turnovers. That is one thing we’ve done well for two weeks and we’ve got to continue to do that.
Q. Just want to follow up, after two games, your top rusher is a freshman; your top receiver is a freshman. Is that an awkward situation or are those positions where freshmen where experience isn’t as much a premium as say quarterback or linebacker or something?
COACH DOEREN: Well, I mean, when I was hired here there were only two running backs on scholarship and six receivers. We were just thin there. There were two quarterbacks. We had to recruit to fill those voids. Freshmen are playing well, they’re bringing energy to the game plan, and they’ve made plays. It wasn’t the plan to have
them be in front of the other guys, it’s just we’re rotating a lot of people, and those guys for two weeks in a row have shown up and made plays for us. We just need them to keep coming on. Unfortunately, two of our fumbles were
freshmen. So you kind of have to take the good with the bad early on.
Q. Overall though, are you pretty pleased with Dave and Valdes-Scantling?
COACH DOEREN: Yeah. Like I said, I’m really excited about the plays they make, but any time you turn the ball over, and both those guys had turnovers in the game, it hurts you. So we’ve got to learn from those mistakes and
they will. They’ll be better in game three than they were in game two with ball security because of that.
Georgia Tech, with its unusual but effective option offense, is tough to defend. Ask the Tar Heels, who put up 50 points at home against the Yellow Jackets last season and still lost, 68-50. But as the Heels get a bye week to prepare, UNC second-year coach Larry Fedora isn’t just blaming the defense – he shoulders some of the blame as well.
“Go back and look in that game,” Fedora said. “We fumbled a kickoff return which gave them the ball in excellent field position. We threw a pick on a screen pass on about our own 25 yard line that gave them the ball on a short field. They returned a pass for a touchdown. We went for a fake punt on our end of the field, didn’t get it. We
gave them another short field. I have to do a better job of making sure we manage that game and put our defense in as many good positions as possible.”
Fedora said he isn’t sure how much of an advantage it will be to have the extra week to prepare but it’s definitely something they look forward to. “Obviously everybody knows their offense is very unique,” he said. “It’s not something you see any other time of the year. Any extra time that you get to prepare for it only helps you.”
Regardless of how much time you have, it’s difficult to defend, Fedora said. “We know that. Obviously everybody in the country knows that. But we welcome the extra practices against what they do offensively. Hopefully we can
be a better team because of it,” he said.
Vlad Lee.
Teams like having an open date before playing Georgia Tech so they can prepare for that unusual “flexbone” option attack but it’s Georgia Tech that had an extra week to prepare for Duke this Saturday.
“It’s a challenge because it’s a completely different style of offense than in the past,” Duke coach David Cutcliffe said. “They do the best job consistently of creating problems with big plays; great play action pass team particularly with a quarterback like Vad (Lee). He has such a strong arm. He can go downfield with the ball. They always have big, tall receivers that give you opportunities to out-jump you. It’s difficult.”
Cutcliffe said the Blue Devils have a lot more work to do this week to prepare.
For his part, Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson says he’s expecting another close game with Duke.
“The games are hard fought – every game is that way,” Johnson said. “We talked about the last two times we’ve been up there and how we got behind both times.”
Even in 2009 when the Yellow Jackets won the league, they fell behind Duke, only to score five TDS in a row. “The game that was a real nail biter was down here in 2010 where we got a big key interception that turned the game,” Johnson said. “And then up the re two years ago, it went back in forth and the final was 38-31.”
With it being the first game for Duke playing without starting QB Anthony Boone, who is injured, it could well be a blowout this time.
But Johnson said GT is going into the game not expecting to win big but just to win.
Joni Pitkanen.Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Joni Pitkanen will miss the entire 2013-14 season.
Pitkanen, 29, suffered a broken left calcaneus (heel) bone on April 2 against Washington, and missed the Hurricanes’ final 13 games of the season. The 2013-14 season would have been his sixth with Carolina and 10th in the NHL.
The Oulu, Finland, native has scored 57 goals and earned 225 assists in 535 career NHL regular-season games with Philadelphia, Edmonton and Carolina, since beginning his NHL career in 2003-04. Since the team’s relocation in 1997, Pitkanen (6’3”, 210 lbs.) ranks third among defensemen in assists (116) and points (140), tied for fourth among club defensemen in goals (240) and eighth among team blueliners in games played (266).
The Carolina Hurricanes open their 2013-14 season on October 4 at PNC Arena against the Detroit Red Wings. Individual game tickets for all Carolina Hurricanes exhibition and regular-season games are on sale at the PNC Arena Box Office and via Ticketmaster.
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Duke sophomore outside hitter Elizabeth Campbell and North Carolina sophomore middle blocker Victoria McPherson were named Atlantic Coast Conference volleyball co-Players of the Week, after each powered their teams to a win against a ranked opponent. 
