WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Wake Forest couldn’t make it two upsets in a row. Not when the opponent was the one team the Demon Deacons — or anybody else this season, really — can never seem to beat.
No. 4 Duke defeated Wake Forest for the 38th straight time on Sunday with a 73-44 rout.
The little things the Demon Deacons did right in their upset of No. 18 Florida State three nights earlier went all wrong in this one. Wake Forest had 23 turnovers — one shy of a season high — and was outscored 40-22 in the second half.
Against the Seminoles, “we were able to withstand runs and understand, ‘All right, that was theirs. Now it’s our turn,'” Wake Forest coach Jen Hoover said. “Today, we weren’t able to make that run that we needed to counter theirs.”
Lakevia Boykin scored 12 points and Dearica Hamby finished with 11 for the Demon Deacons (9-7, 2-2 Atlantic Coast Conference), who were denied their first victory over Duke since 1993.
“We just got in that drought and we weren’t able to get defensive stops when we needed it, turned the ball over … and just pushing through when they make a run,” Boykin said. “We have to respond and make a run of our own. We went through too long of a drought without scoring, and the game got away from us.”
Elizabeth Williams scored 18 points, Richa Jackson added 10 points and Chloe Wells matched a season best with 10 points for the Blue Devils (15-0, 5-0), who scored 26 points off those turnovers.
Duke shot 48 percent to remain the only Division I team — men’s or women’s — with a perfect record. The Blue Devils haven’t had a game decided by fewer than 10 points.
“Every day, we’re just striving to get better, and I think playing in the ACC, it’s exciting for us to come out and play against some strong competition and keep getting those wins,” Williams said.
Duke’s streak in this one-sided intrastate series is tied for the third-longest in the nation among women’s programs in the same conference. The Blue Devils trail only Stanford, which has beaten Washington State 53 straight times, and UCSB, which owns 39 consecutive victories over Cal State-Fullerton.
Williams insisted she was unaware of Duke’s streak.
“It’s just exciting to play in the ACC and an instate rivalry is always exciting,” Williams said.
The Blue Devils led for all of about 2½ minutes of this one and spent the afternoon gradually increasing their lead. They used a run of 10 straight points to take their first double-figure lead with roughly 1½ minutes left in the half, then pushed it into the 20s midway through the second half.
The backbreaking stretch came with about 12 minutes to play when the Demon Deacons cut their deficit to 49-35. Wells and Tricia Liston hit 3-pointers roughly 30 seconds apart, and two possessions later, Williams put back her own miss to stretch it to 57-37 with just under 10 minutes left.
Wake Forest never got closer than 17 the rest of the way, and Wells’ jumper with just over 4 minutes left pushed the lead to 72-42.
Williams reached double figures for the 12th time this season while Jackson finished with just her second double-figure performance since returning from a knee injury that ended her 2011-12 season early.
“I loved Chloe and Richa off the bench … just their poise and confidence,” Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “They know what’s going on out there, so we don’t lose anything. You’re looking at a team that’s very seriously seven or eight deep in terms of not losing anything and also bringing a lot of confidence. We’re trying to build on that.”
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