The Duke women's rowing team entered the Head of the Chattahoochee in Atlanta this weekend as the two-time defending collegiate champion, and although official results will not be calculated until the end of the week, it appears that the Blue Devils have added a third consecutive title.
Duke entered boats in nine different races and came away with 13 medals, easily bettering its total of nine top-three finishes last year.
"I'm really pleased with the depth that the team showed," coach Robyn Horner said. "This weekend was a total team effort. Our second and third boats stepped up and were able to do very well, and it was also exciting to have such a strong showing from our freshmen."
Throughout the fall season, the freshmen boats have been performing well, but they had not faced traditional rowing powerhouses such as Clemson, Texas and Tennessee until Saturday.
But Duke showed the depth of its freshman class by claiming the Freshman 8 race in a time of 18:08, which is nearly a minute-and-a-half faster than last year's Freshman 8 boat.
"Our class definitely has a lot of potential," freshman Lindsay Stanga said. "We seem to be improving a lot and we just felt like we had a great race."
The same rowers that won the Championship Four race last year--sophomore coxswain Jessie Batzell and juniors Amelia Booth, Katie Lakin, Joanna Hingle and Caroline Diemar--in a time of 19:16 also dominated the event this year. They improved their time to 18:38, which placed them 10 seconds ahead of ACC rival Clemson.
"I would probably say that the Championship Four race was the most gratifying," Horner said. "We've been going back and forth with Clemson in a lot of races recently, and I was really happy with the results."
However, the Tigers were able to defeat Duke in the Championship Eight event. Clemson's boat finished the 3.17 mile course in 16:50, while the Blue Devils captured second place with a time of 17:10.
Duke hopes that its success at the Head of the Chattahoochee will carry over into next weekend's Rivanna Romp in Charlottesville, Va., where the Blue Devils will face some of their toughest competition of the fall season. Virginia, Ohio State and Syracuse, which all made the NCAA Championships last year, will help the Blue Devils gauge their progress toward a first-ever NCAA birth.
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