If Tonya Lippard's nerves are any judge, the rowing team has done something right.
"We're even more excited now than in the fall, and a little bit nervous," Lippard said. "We have the potential of going to the [NCAA] Championships now. We know now we can go out and take it to the next level, to compete and win at that next level."
After three years of club status and a fall of varsity head racing, Lippard is ready to do what she joined the club team three years ago hoping to one day be able to do-guide the Blue Devils into their first ACC season.
Along with a trio of fourth-year seniors, Lippard and Duke will join the newest branch of the 55-year-old ACC this spring. And while Lippard hasn't sorted out whether she's excited or nervous, the one thing she does know is that she's more than ready for the chance to compete.
"We're feeling really good about the season," she said. "We've made a lot of improvements since the fall. We finished strong in our last few races, and we're feeling really confident. We're just ready to go."
North Carolina, now in its second year of varsity status, a first-year team from Clemson and national power Virginia round out the rest of the ACC lineup.
And while No. 4 Virginia will undoubtedly claim top conference honors, the Blue Devils have already shown that they can compete on the national scene. Head racing successes against both North Carolina and Clemson in the fall has Duke eyeing a second-place debut.
"We've been gaining on [North Carolina] by leaps and bounds," Lippard said. "We have a lot of work left to do still, but this whole conference is going to be competitive. We're trying to be the best and would love to be second, but being second in the conference is a great thing."
Duke, UNC and Clemson all locked rowing horns in November's Head of the Chattahoochee. The Tar Heels finished ahead, but the Blue Devils' near-miss scored a mental victory that North Carolina may not have forgotten yet.
"Carolina was upset because they couldn't beat us by more than two seconds," junior Eli Hayes said after the two varsity 8+ boats claimed the gold and silver. "After two years of recruiting classes, we were still able to consistently place; we had so many top sixes. UNC didn't do that, Clemson didn't do that. That says a lot about this team."
But coach Robyn Horner, who piloted her previous collegiate team at Williams College to the NCAAs in just three years, hasn't let her squad grow complacent. During the winter, Horner stepped up off-the-water training, focusing on increasing the explosiveness of her rowers.
While the fall's head racing is a prolonged affair, rewarding endurance and stamina, the spring's sprint racing is just what the name implies-an all-out dash. And in order to be sure her team finishes the dash with the same speed it starts, Horner has been working her rowers even harder than in the fall.
"We're going in there and pushing ourselves to the limit," Lippard said. "Coach Horner has really been giving us hard workouts, having us go beyond even what we'll do in the race. If we're practicing for the 2,000 meters, we do 3,000. We want to have that extra spurt at the end of races."
Although most of the talk surrounding this team is about the successive series of beginnings and firsts that accompany an inaugural season, for the four seniors who total 15 years of collegiate rowing experience between them, the focus of this season is going out with a bang. With only one shot at the NCAAs, they plan to make their final year one to remember. And that, according to Lippard, may be their biggest advantage.
"I think we're kind of like the grounders," said Lippard. "We go out and have fun. We want to do our best, while still having fun doing it. We're trying to be very supportive of the younger girls, especially the novices. We'll be almost like mentors for their first sprint season. We want to set the example to be followed."
Lippard thinks that example, despite opinion riding against them, will be completed with the exclamation point of the NCAA Championships.
"We've got leadership and great coaches who go out and get us to do what they want and make us want it too," she said. "We're considered by a lot of people to be underdogs, but we have the drive and compassion to do it, and we have what it takes to be good. Maybe not the best in the nation, but we're going to be good."
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