Carleigh Wenzel was the lone double-figure scorer for Virginia Tech against Duke in what was a rough shooting day. (Jon Fleming)

Virginia Tech couldn’t hang with Duke in a choppy and sloppy game on Sunday afternoon in Cassell Coliseum, losing its ACC opener 70-54.

The Hokies (7-3, 0-1 ACC) shot a season-low 26.6 percent from the field (17-for-64), their first time below 30 percent as a team since Dec. 18, 2022, vs. Notre Dame. The last time they struggled that much offensively was when they made just 18.8 percent of their shots (12-for-64) on Jan. 26, 2017, at Virginia.

“I thought we got punched pretty good at times,” Tech head coach Megan Duffy said. “It was kind of an ugly first half, but just overall disappointed with a little bit of our execution and how we came out today.”

The Blue Devils (4-6, 1-0) have consistently been a defensive-minded team in Kara Lawson’s six seasons, and this year is no different, but they’ve had a rough start to the year. They lost to Baylor in Paris to open the campaign before dropping a game to West Virginia. They followed that up with four straight defeats — against USF and then excellent programs in South Carolina, UCLA and LSU.

This isn’t exactly last season’s Duke team that won the ACC Tournament, and Tech had an opportunity for a quality win on its home floor against a group that’s struggled as of late, but it squandered the chance.

Carleigh Wenzel was the only Hokies player in double figures with 15 points, which she accomplished on 4-for-17 shooting, plus a 4-for-4 mark from the foul line. Three other players had six points: Carys Baker (2-for-10), Samyha Suffren (2-for-7) and Kilah Freelon (2-for-4).

“They’re big, they’re long, they’re physical,” Duffy said. “They’re going to prevent you from getting to some of your spots. One of the things we were talking about a lot leading up to this game was changing sides of the floor, and I just thought we were a bit tentative with that, so we’ll go back to the drawing board and figuring out ways that we can help our women get some easier shots. I think when we did, we rushed them a little bit too, just with their size and length.”

Tech and Duke traded blows in the first half, which saw the Blue Devils shoot a tad better — 34 percent to the Hokies’ 26 percent — and take a 34-26 lead into intermission.

The Hokies played without forward Kilah Freelon for the majority of the half due to foul trouble, and that allowed Blue Devils forward Toby Fournier to get going. She finished with game-highs of 19 points and nine rebounds. Guard Taina Mair was also disruptive with 17 points, six steals and five rebounds.

“I just didn’t think we got off to a very good start at the beginning of the game with our physical play,” Duffy said. “The opposite was true I think [against] Florida. We were really good at putting bodies on people and pushing back and just didn’t quite have it today.”

Virginia Tech had a tough time against Duke's physicality, particularly on the glass. (Jon Fleming)

It seemed like the Hokies might’ve been gearing up for a second-half run when three free throws from Mackenzie Nelson and a layup from Aniya Trent made it a 44-37 margin with 4:12 left in the third quarter, but the Blue Devils used an 8-0 run — which featured six foul shots — to create a double-digit cushion.

Things only went downhill from there when Tech went without a field goal for 7:27 and Duke tacked on six more points, courtesy of a three-point play by Riley Nelson and a trey from Ashlon Jackson, forcing Duffy to call timeout twice. With 6:06 remaining, the Hokies trailed 62-41.

Tech had one of its best offensive stretches of the day in the waning moments, using an 8-0 run to pull within 13, before Duke shut the door for good.

One of the other biggest swings of the game was the Blue Devils’ 50-34 margin on the glass. They outrebounded Tech 22-12 in the second half, too, and seven of their eight players corralled four-plus boards.

“I thought we were really intentional about going to the glass,” Duke head coach Kara Lawson said, “and we got contributions from a lot of players. We challenged them all to come away with five rebounds each. If you play today, you’ve got to go to the glass and you’ve got to box out, and I thought that helped us with some extra opportunities and limiting them to one shot as best we could.”

Duke also turned the ball over 24 times, led by Ashlon Jackson’s seven (to go with 12 points and seven rebounds), but it also forced the Hokies to give it away 17 times. There were also a combined 46 free throws attempted. The Blue Devils were 20-for-29 while Tech was 15-for-17.

“I think some of their turnovers were a little bit unforced,” Duffy said, “and then some of them we obviously had a few things to do with. I thought we could’ve capitalized a little bit better on their turnovers. We were a little bit tentative in transition and bobbled the ball a few times. I thought it was a little bit uncharacteristic of us once we got out in transition, some of our decision-making and confidence to go up with it.”

It’s the second straight year the Hokies lost to the Blue Devils to open ACC play after a 21-point defeat in Cameron Indoor Stadium 364 days ago.

Tech has four games remaining before Christmas, beginning with Presbyterian in Cassell Coliseum on Wednesday. It hosts ETSU, travels to Florida State for its second road test of the season and welcomes Radford after that.

“Me and Carleigh have been playing against Duke for a while now so we knew what to expect,” Baker said, “and I think it was hard to get everyone on the same page, all at the same time. But we play again on Wednesday, so the bounce back has to be quick, and we just have to turn around and get everyone back on the same page because when we are on the same page, we’re clicking really well.”

Box Score: Duke 70, Virginia Tech 54