New teams, new format and new rivalries. The only thing that will be the same about this year's ACC Championship for Duke will be the location.
The Blue Devils will compete in the ACC Championship as the No. 5 seed Friday and Saturday—marking the first time the conference has used the two-day format—at Lake Hartwell in Clemson, S.C.
With Notre Dame and Syracuse joining the conference this season, Duke will take on three top-20 squads when it hits the water this weekend. Annual powerhouse and fifth-ranked Virginia leads the way followed by the No. 10 Fighting Irish and No. 18 Orange. After spending the last three weeks practicing against one another, the Blue Devils will gladly welcome the new competition.
"Last week we would just be at the lake all day just practicing, so it's really exciting to now just go and get to race and be in an environment with a ton of different teams," senior Grace Cassidy said. "It's nice to get that excitement level up again."
Duke is familiar with the format, as it raced in several two-day meets earlier in the season. But it will be the first time the Blue Devils will have to face all of its conference foes in a two-day stretch, meaning they will have to work on regaining energy after Friday's events and coming back strong Saturday morning. But senior Tara Dalton is confident that her team's conditioning will not be a factor.
"When you have one race, you see it as all I have to do is this one race and then I'm done. But the two race is definitely an extra battle that we're going to have to gear up for," she said. "We know we have a lot of fitness, so we're just going to go all out both races."
With the two-day format in place, the eight teams will be split into two initial heats Friday. Those that finish in the top six will move on to the Championship Final Saturday while the remaining two teams will compete in a Petite Final. Also new to this year's conference competition will be the addition of the third varsity eight, which will consist of a single championship race in which all teams except Miami will compete.
"There's a heat and a final. In the heat we're seeing Virginia, Clemson and UNC so that's going to be like an old-school ACC conference [matchup]," Dalton said. "We're excited to show a good performance against them in the heats and then lay it all down in the final."
The Blue Devils will hope to repeat the success they had last year when they finished second to Virginia in the varsity eight and varsity four. And although Duke has finished third place or better in 11 of the last 13 league championships, with Notre Dame and Syracuse in the mix this year, the Blue Devils will have to be at the top of their game if they hope to notch a top-three finish this year.
In a head-to-head matchup against the Orange at the UVA Invite April 26, Duke's varsity eight boat was narrowly beat out by 0:04.7. Following the race, the Blue Devils cited their inability to match Syracuse's final push as the main reason they lost the race. With three weeks to perfect that last 750 meters, Duke will look to mirror that explosive burst in order to upset the Orange on the big stage.
"We've been thinking about that race a lot," Cassidy said. "[We've been thinking] about going that fast to the 1k then holding that speed for longer. So that's something we've used in training, about how if that race again we don't want it to happen the same way."
Although it is too early for any of the Blue Devil seniors to think about it, this weekend's tournament will be their final race wearing Duke gear. For Cassidy, this past weekend's graduation was not so much a reminder that her time in the boat is coming to an end but more so of how much the team has shaped her time as a Blue Devil.
"It definitely doesn't feel like I'm graduated yet because we're still rowing and rowing has been such a huge part of my whole entire college time," Cassidy said. "But graduation was nice because it reminded me how much the team supports us. A ton of them came out to the graduation in Wallace Wade even though it was scorching hot. They were really happy for us and it was great to have them there."
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