SPORTS

DURHAM, N.C. — Duke’s Haley Gorecki scored a game-high 25 points and Duke used a big second quarter to send Davidson to its second straight defeat to an ACC opponent in an 82-52 decision Wednesday night inside Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Duke won its third straight to improve to 5-2, while the Wildcats fell to 4-3 on the young season.

The Wildcats’ strong first quarter was spoiled by Gorecki, who scored 16 of her 25 points in the second quarter and the Blue Devils outscored the ‘Cats 26-7 to erase a five-point deficit and take a 40-26 lead into halftime. Gorecki scored the first seven points of the quarter and 13 of 15 overall for Duke to open the quarter.

Davidson had a solid start to the game, overcoming a 12-8 deficit early with an 11-2 run to end the quarter for a 19-14 lead. Ally Welling had five points during the spurt, including her first career three-pointer at the top of the key.

“We got off to a great start, I thought we came out and really did a good job executing our game plan,” said head coach Gayle Fulks. “Then, we lost number two, Haley Gorecki, she had a great second quarter, really put them on our back. The game got a little away from us and from there we didn’t do a good job responding with the final score kind of reflecting that.”

The Wildcats were never able to recover after the second quarter, falling behind by as many as 30 points in the final two quarters.

Nine different ‘Cats put their names in the scorer’s book, paced by Cassidy Gould’s nine points to go with five assists. Sarah Donovan had eight points and eight rebounds, while Katie Turner scored eight points and Sarah Konstans came off the bench to drop in seven points on 3-of-5 shooting.

In addition to her 25 points, Gorecki added eight rebounds, four assists and three steals. Four other Blue Devils hit for double-digits in the point column, with Leaonna Odom, Jade Williams and Onome Akinbode-James each scoring 12 points. Akinbode-James recorded a double-double with 12 rebounds. Azana Baines had 11 points.

Duke finished the game shooting 51.7 percent and went 13-of-19 at the charity stripe, while the ‘Cats were held to 29.2 percent and had just two free throw attempts after coming into the game averaging over 20 a game.

The Wildcats hauled in 21 offensive rebounds, its second straight game with that many and scored 20 points off of Duke’s 19 turnovers.

“Having an opportunity to come here is something we were really looking forward to,” said Fulks. “This is a legendary place. For our kids to get this opportunity was outstanding, I just wish we would have finished the game a little better, which would have been a little more fun. But, it absolutely prepares us to have a better feel for what we need to do to get better to win our league.”

GAME NOTES: This was the fifth meeting all-time between both team’s women’s basketball programs, with Duke moving to 4-1 in the series … Davidson is in the midst of playing seven of its first nine games on the road and are in a stretch of four games on the road in a nine-day span … The Wildcats hit nine three-pointers, the third time this year with at least eight in a game.