The rowing team wrapped up its season with a trip to the west coast Sunday. The team finished eighth in the Championship Eight, sixth in the Championship Four, and fifth in both the JV Eight and 3V Eight at the Head of the Lake Regatta in Seattle.
The trip was Duke's first facing strong teams such as Washington State, Washington and UCLA.
"The west coast teams are really strong," head coach Robyn Horner said. "It's our ultimate long-term goal to make it to nationals, and all the crews that were ahead of us in the Championship Eight consistently make it to nationals. So it was good to see where we were against them."
Despite finishing eighth out of 11 teams, the Championship Eight, which clocked in nearly 30 seconds behind the leader, was 4.1 percent off the winning time, and the team was happy with its performance.
"We really executed our race plan," senior coxswain Sarah Shapiro said. "It was an awesome team effort."
In the Championship Four race, the Blue Devil crew placed sixth out of 13 boats, losing out to fifth place University of Washington C by a mere .068 seconds.
Duke finished in fifth place in the JV Eight race, placing fifth and beating out four other schools including Oregon State and Gonzaga.
The third women's Eight finished fourth out of 17 boats, beating out University of Washington's A, B and C crews, as well as the University of Portland's A and B crews.
"Our second and third Eights were really aggressive and really attacked in the race," Horner said. "We finished where we expected to."
Duke took another positive out of the trip as the team gained time in their splits against Yale. The Blue Devils had previously faced the Bulldogs at the Head of the Charles in Boston.
Yale beat Duke by 48 seconds Oct. 23, but in Seattle, the Blue Devils cut the Bulldog's margin of victory to just 22 seconds.
"We closed the gap quite a bit from Head of the Charles, meaning we're moving ahead and making progress," Horner said.
Shapiro highlighted the weekend as a true team effort and was pleased with the way her team is entering the offseason.
"It was the last race of the season, and it was great to take everything we've worked on for this season and put it on the water," she said. "It was a really good last race to carry us in to the winter training season with momentum."
The team has a four-month hiatus before the spring season begins. Duke will spend the offseason working out before it resumes action in the Longhorn Invitational in Austin, Texas, March 17-19.
"We still have quite a bit of work to do," Horner said. "We just need to keep pushing to get more fit and trying to make it to the national level."
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