Saturday-Duke and 54 other teams from around the country traveled to Oak Ridge, Tenn., to compete in the Southern Intercollegiates.
Sunday-the Blue Devils returned home with their first-ever first-place trophy in any event with such a large field of competitors.
The key to the Blue Devils' win was Duke finishing in the top three in all four races it competed in. The Blue Devils recorded two wins in the freshman novice races, a silver medal in the varsity four and a bronze medal in the junior varsity fours.
Besides the overall win, Duke's greatest victories came against the much-touted Louisville squad, the focus of a recent article in U.S. Rowing as "an up-and-coming" program. The Cardinals had been undefeated until the Blue Devil novice eights handed them their first losses of the year.
"Louisville and Indiana are [our rivals] because they're new programs like us," head coach Robyn Horner said. "Louisville has been the talk of the rowing community and there has been a big to-do about them this year."
In the final novice B race on Saturday, Duke pulled ahead of Indiana and Louisville to take its first win of the regatta. Feeding on the momentum of the freshmen, the novice eight A delivered the Blue Devils' second win in a field of 23 entries. Duke finished with a time of 6.57.5, four seconds faster than second-place Louisville.
"[Louisville] kept beating all these programs-they beat Clemson, they beat Notre Dame-but they hadn't faced us until now," Horner said.
The junior varsity four placed third on Saturday, behind Clemson and Tennessee. The next day the varsity four finished second between the Clemson first and second boats, cementing Duke's overall win.
"We weren't really concerned with UNC or Clemson so much," Horner said. "The only thing on our mind was, 'We have to have Louisville.' Everyone was telling us that we had to be the ones to take them down. We're really excited now."
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