As a tornado tore apart her Oklahoma home on Monday, Duke soccer player Ana Hunt cried as she heard her mother praying. Inside a specially built shelter attached to the side of the house in Moore, Okla., mother and daughter heard the deafening roar of the storm.

North Carolina may be the No. 1 seed for this week’s ACC Tournament, which starts today at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, but that doesn’t mean the Tar Heels received an easy draw.

Former Arkansas quarterback Brandon Mitchell says he is transferring to N.C. State to play his final season.

Duke’s frontcourt rotation for next season will not include 6-9 center Tarik Black. A former Memphis player who had been considering a transfer to the Blue Devils, Black signed with Kansas on Monday.

After winning the ACC regular-season title for the first time since 1990, North Carolina players have claimed the top individual awards. Junior third baseman Colin Moran was named ACC player of the year and junior lefthander Kent Emanuel was named ACC pitcher of the year, the league announced Monday.

Florida State and Georgia Tech will open the ACC Baseball Tournament on Wednesday at 11 a.m., while top-seeded North Carolina will face Miami on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

Coach John Danowski had won nearly 80 percent of rematches while at Duke, while the
Blue Devils had advanced to the Final Four in each of his six seasons at the school. Those trends continued, as Duke rallied for a 12-11 win over the Irish in front of a pro-Notre Dame crowd of 7,749 in Lucas Oil Stadium.

The eighth-ranked Duke women’s lacrosse team held top-seeded and top-ranked Maryland to five goals in the first 25 minutes of play but ultimately fell 14-9 in the NCAA quarterfinals Saturday.

As the Blue Devils prepare to play Notre Dame (2:30 p.m., ESPNU) Sunday, needing a win to reach the sports final four for a seventh consecutive time, they are counting on a young, talented player as the last line of defense.

The task facing Duke’s women’s lacrosse team today is as daunting as it gets. The Blue Devils need a win to reach their sport’s version of the Final Four. But to get there, Duke must win at No. 1-ranked and unbeaten Maryland (noon, CBSSports.com).

Senior Brinson Paolini fired a two-under 68 to lead Duke to a two-under 278 in the opening round of the NCAA Tempe Regional at the ASU Karsten Golf Course (par 70, 7,036 yards).

Both Durham Academy’s Elizabeth Eason and N.C. School of Science and Mathematics’ Jin Kang this weekend will play for state championships in lacrosse and tennis, respectively.

Duke forward Josh Hairston had successful surgery to repair his injured right thumb on Tuesday.

For the first time since his life-threatening accident in July, Blair Holliday will return to classes at Duke this week. Holliday, a wide receiver on Duke’s football team before suffering a traumatic brain injury in a personal watercraft accident on July 4, has been reinstated to the university and will take a class in the summer school session that begins on Wednesday.