Tar Heels take down top-ranked Duke

Less than five minutes into Monday’s contest between No. 12 North Carolina and No. 1 Duke, 5-foot-6 inch UNC guard Ivory Latta swooped into the lane for a one-handed lay-up attempt, only to have her shot denied by 6-foot-7 inch Blue Devil center Allison Bales.

But Latta proved to be unfazed by the block, as she emerged from the crowd in the paint nodding her head and clapping her hands.

Just after the 17-minute mark in the first half, Latta made a similar drive into a forest of Duke players, one of whom was Bales. This time the sophomore double-clutched and powered in a lay-up, drawing a foul.

In the Tar Heels’ last 19 games against a No. 1-ranked team and in their previous 12 encounters with Duke, UNC had been denied. But the Tar Heels’ used an intrepid attitude similar to Latta’s to exorcise the past and knock off the Blue Devils by a score of 56-51 in the Smith Center.

“It’s been four years, and for us to beat the number one team and it be Duke, it’s just a double victory for me,” said UNC senior Nikita Bell.

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL Duke 51 UNC 56

The contest was not a pretty one, as both teams shot under 30 percent from the field and had 44 combined turnovers compared to just 14 total assists for the game. UNC needed a 16-1 run at the end of the first half just to make the score 26-13 in its favor at the break.

But it was this scoring streak and UNC’s ability to match Duke shot for shot down the stretch that allowed the Tar Heels to pull out the victory.

“Every game that we’ve had this year, we’ve jumped out to a pretty good lead, and then we relaxed, and we lost a couple of those games,” said UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell. “So we were just trying to stay focused, and the kids were just ready to play.”

UNC (15-3, 3-2 in the ACC) played suffocating defense on Duke (18-2, 4-1), as it held star forward Monique Currie to just two first-half points and had 18 steals — many of which turned into breakaway lay-ins.

“Coach stressed how we needed to get in the lane, deny, play intense, and that’s all I was focused on, just being intense,” said Bell, who had the responsibility of shadowing Currie for most of the game.

But Currie woke up in the second half to score 22 of her game-high 24 points, and the Blue Devils gradually cut UNC’s 15-point lead down to just two with 1:42 remaining.

Latta’s two free throws gave the Tar Heels a 55-51 lead with 16 seconds remaining before Currie was fouled in the backcourt by Bell.

However, Currie, who was 8-for-8 at the line to that point, could not find the bottom of the net on either of her attempts. And after UNC’s La’Tangela Atkinson sunk one out of two from the charity stripe with 10 seconds left, the game was out of reach for the Blue Devils.

Despite the historic loss, Duke coach Gail Goestenkors still found some solace in her team’s effort.

“We’re going to learn a lot from this game,” she said. “To have played the game we played and still have an opportunity to win is a sign of good things that could have been.”

But as the buzzer sounded and the scoreboard showed that the Tar Heels had defeated Duke for the first time in five years, it was the UNC players and fans who were rushing the court and jumping in jubilation.

And while Hatchell was proud of her team’s accomplishment, she was careful not to exaggerate the magnitude of such a win.

“I enjoy playing (Duke) and I don’t like to lose, and it’s a great rivalry with a great team,” Hatchell said. “This is a great victory for us, but it’s not life or death.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.