In a dominating performance, the rowing team won a multitude of races Saturday on Lake Hartwell in Clemson, S.C., defeating two other southern teams, Tennessee and host Clemson.
Duke head coach Robyn Horner was all smiles when the competition finally ended.
"This was a very special weekend for us," Horner said. "We had an excellent overall team performance and the novices began their Duke racing careers by making a statement."
The statement was quite clear-Duke won six of the day's seven races, starting with one of the most important, the varsity eight.
Duke's varsity eight boat lineup of Yng-Ru Chen (coxswain), Amanda Adam, Amelia Booth, Katie Lakin, Joanna Hingle, Caroline Diemar, Maren Betts-Sonstegard, Melissa Sullivan and Kara Cerwensky, began the competition with a victory over Tennessee and Clemson, finishing nine seconds faster then Clemson and 31 seconds ahead of Tennessee.
In the second race, Duke's two novice eight teams followed the lead of their more experienced teammates and finished one-two, soundly beating the five other novice teams.
While happy with the results of Duke's two novice crews, Horner reserved top praise for her varsity squad, which is seeing its best results since the sport came to Duke three years ago with varsity status.
After the impressive showing of its novices, Duke sent its varsity rowers back on the water and proceeded to win both the varsity four and varsity pairs races.
"I am especially pleased with the performance of our top varsity eight," Horner said. "They had an awesome eight race and then followed with success as we broke the boats down into fours and pairs. A special tip of the hat to sophomores [Joanna] Hingle and [Katie] Lakin who came away from the weekend with three golds."
Those two sophomores each took home gold medals for their performances achieved together in the varsity eight, varsity four, and varsity pairs. Lakin and Hingle attributed their success to their brutal practice regimens.
"We do a lot of rowing, we run, we lift weights," Lakin said. "Rowing is so physically [demanding] that you have to be really strong in order to be successful. That's why we train so much."
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