The Blue Devils are looking to continue building momentum toward the end of the season this weekend.
Duke will take on Columbia and Northeastern in Leonia, N.J., Saturday in the team's first race since a program-best performance at the San Diego Crew Classic two weekends ago. After seeing top-ranked competition in San Diego, the Blue Devils will relish a chance to compete against the Lions and the Huskies—two programs that have received votes in the CRCA/U.S. Rowing Coaches poll this season.
“This, I think is the perfect race to follow off such at high in California,” senior Claire Vannelli said. “We saw our speed there and we can really test it out on schools that are right within our range.”
Head coach Robyn Horner was pleased with the team’s performance at the Crew Classic—where Duke's V8 boat cut three seconds off its Saturday time to win Sunday's Cal Cup Grand Final by more than five seconds—but will not let her rowers become complacent. Horner has made multiple adjustments to the Blue Devil racing strategy for this weekend, both from a tactical and personnel perspective.
“[We made] a couple of switches in boat assignments,” Horner said. The 1V8…[has the] exact same people, but we made a stroking adjustment in who’s stroking the boat. With the 2V we did have two people that changed out—two people went down to the 4 and two people came up to into the 2V8."
Horner is confident that Duke will successfully adjust to these changes— further proving the resiliency she has lauded all season.
“The theme of this season has definitely been resiliency,” Vannelli said. “We’ve changed lineups, we’ve changed rigging, stroke seats and people boat to boat.... Nothing’s been static. We haven’t just kind of done something and stuck with it. We keep mixing things up."
After beginning the season at Tennessee March 8 at a much lower stroke rating than Horner would have liked, Duke has worked to elevate both its stroke rate and speed. The Blue Devils will strive for continued progress against Columbia and Northeastern.
“For this weekend our focus is really trying to make sure that our finishing sprint is really strong,” Horner said. “The races will come down to that. We want to put ourselves in a position to keep being aggressive as we finish up the race.”
Typically, collegiate women’s races are held in the early afternoon, but Saturday Duke will begin racing at 7 a.m. due to large winds expected in the afternoon. In addition to winds, the Blue Devils may face colder temperatures in New Jersey than they experienced in practice this week.
“Weather has always been the great equalizer in rowing.... It doesn’t come down to how technically proficient can you be in flat water or how can you best apply your power because maybe you won’t have that chance,” Vannelli said. “Its just what crew is going to manage that the best, not necessarily the fastest crew…. We’re just going to deal with it the best.”
Embracing the challenges of undesirable weather is just further proof of the hardiness of the Duke squad. The team has overcome a slow start and will aim for continued improvement in the last two races of the regular season.
“It doesn’t matter if you have a setback early, you have to keep pushing forward and keep going after it,” Horner said. “And I think our kids have done a great job with that. We’ve really kind of taken each challenge and just tried to rise up to it and try and learn from it."
After Saturday’s races in Leonia, Duke will return to Clemson, S.C., for the Clemson Invitational April 18.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.