Upcoming Event: Rowing at UCF Invitational on April 17, 2026 at All Day
/
All Day
Rowing
at UCF Invitational
Kiernan Spencer Shares Memories of 2019 ACC Championship
6/20/2020 9:00:00 AM | Rowing
DURHAM, N.C. – The efforts of any graduating senior across all sports can often be measured by one metric: the state of the program when they arrived versus when they left. It can be depicted through results, through team chemistry or through a culture of unwavering commitment that a senior student-athlete helped lay the foundation for. As it pertains to the six seniors that represent Duke rowing, this spring offered very few such answers.
For any Blue Devils winter and spring program, the shock that the season would be left without an ending was only surpassed by the disappointment each team had to endure. For Kiernan Spencer and the rowing squad, however, that harsh reality would hit harder through one realization – the team would not have its chance at building off of last year's finish.
On the afternoon May 18, 2019 season, the Blue Devils found themselves celebrating joyously in Clemson, S.C. The group had earned a silver medal at the ACC Championship, led by exceptional performances by each boat, and a second NCAA bid in program history was nearly inevitable. It was, perhaps, one of the most monumental days Duke rowing had ever seen.
The Blue Devils entered the 2020 spring campaign with even higher goals. They were zeroed in on bringing a conference gold medal back to Durham, and after claiming their fourth consecutive Carolina Cup in early March, the team appeared poised to make another run. Yet despite the substantial dissatisfaction that this 'Season that wasn't' leaves behind, Spencer knows that it took a special group to create such great expectations. It was that unforgettable day in May last year that reminds her of that, and while many will try and turn the page to focus on what's ahead, the North Hampton, N.H., native took time to reflect on what made that particular day, as she puts it, 'Quintessentially DWR.'
As the weekend of May 15th came and went this spring – the weekend that would've marked my fourth appearance at the ACC Rowing Championship if not for the shortened season – I was presented with many memories of the year prior. Photos of my teammates embracing each other and grinning as they wielded silver and gold medals kept popping up across social media, and messages with teammates reminiscing on the joy of the year before crowded my phone. As a graduating senior, I have a seemingly inexhaustible array of memories (lucky for me, most of them fond) to look back at over my past four years of rowing. Choosing one above the others as the best is an impossible task, but experiencing an May without ACCs this year made me realize the singular significance of the 2019 championship in my Duke experience, and it is this memory I would like to share.
I knew the final day of the championship was going to be memorable from the moment I stepped into my seat from the launching dock on the last day of racing. Two Duke boats had already raced down the line with incredible finishes, each one coming in close behind the University of Virginia for second place. The pressure was mounting for the remaining boats to follow up their strong performance. I remember my hand shaking as we pushed off the warm, soggy wood of the Clemson dock, and hoping silently that the day would be memorable for the best reasons, willing my actions with each stroke I took to make it so. About 500 meters into our warmup, my flurry of nervous thoughts was suddenly halted.
Our coxswain, Tara, called us to stop rowing as the Grand Final of the First Varsity Four was about to come down the lanes beside us. From behind me my teammate, Sophie, broke in and exclaimed, "LOOK." I whipped around in my seat to see the Duke four in a commanding lead over every other boat on the course, the forms of my five teammates a blur of color. I remember my boatmates and I sitting there, breathless, not paying the slightest attention to the slightly alarming bobbing of our shell in the wake, as we saw our teammates cross the finish line almost five whole seconds ahead of second-place Syracuse. It was the first ACC gold medal in Duke Women's Rowing history. We screamed our lungs out cheering for them, with full-on tears streamed down our cheeks and we embraced each other across the riggers between our seats. They did it. I don't think I have ever felt more one with my teammates, inside and outside the gunwales of my boat, than I did in that moment.
I don't remember much of the rest of our warmup, but when we got to the start line, I felt propped up by the pride I had for my teammates and the desire to make them proud in turn. After perhaps the grittiest race of my life, we ended with a hard fought second place finish. At the end, we sat with legs dangling in the cool water, spent but smiling with the knowledge that we had almost certainly secured a bid for the NCAA championship, only the second in DWR history.
Back on the shore and among the huddle of the various team tents, memories of celebrating with teammates and coaches still brings a smile to my face to this day. In the post-race cold tubs, we laughed and clinked our chocolate milk pouches, and all around was a happy mess of people hugging and saying things along the lines of, "We finally did it. All of our work finally paid off." As I said these things myself, I knew, as I think my teammates did as well, that these phrases were just snapshots, that they couldn't possibly get at the bigger picture of our DWR journey. The path to that day last year had seen some seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and even with the word "finally" we knew our work was still far from over. We still had our sights on NCAAs, on winning the overall ACC title next time. But that May day solidified for me that path and showed me clearer than ever that our team was truly on its way.
On the grassy hill that serves as the seating for the awards ceremony, and on the bus ride home later that evening, I was reminded again and again of all the traits that made me love and admire my teammates more even than the victories we had won earlier in the day. They were the very same traits that I had experienced in my boat as we watched the Varsity Four win gold. As each subsequent Duke boat went up to the podium to receive their medals, every other girl on the team cheered louder than for their own boat. It's the semi-crazed looking photos of my teammates frozen mid leap, arms flung up in the air, as the awards are doled out that are my favorite to look back on. They represent the sheer heart that I'm proud to say our team holds, on that day and every day, along with the fierce support, resilience and dedication that also made that event what it was. The day was as quintessentially DWR as it could get, and that's what I love about it.
-Kiernan Spencer
#GoDuke
For any Blue Devils winter and spring program, the shock that the season would be left without an ending was only surpassed by the disappointment each team had to endure. For Kiernan Spencer and the rowing squad, however, that harsh reality would hit harder through one realization – the team would not have its chance at building off of last year's finish.
On the afternoon May 18, 2019 season, the Blue Devils found themselves celebrating joyously in Clemson, S.C. The group had earned a silver medal at the ACC Championship, led by exceptional performances by each boat, and a second NCAA bid in program history was nearly inevitable. It was, perhaps, one of the most monumental days Duke rowing had ever seen.
The Blue Devils entered the 2020 spring campaign with even higher goals. They were zeroed in on bringing a conference gold medal back to Durham, and after claiming their fourth consecutive Carolina Cup in early March, the team appeared poised to make another run. Yet despite the substantial dissatisfaction that this 'Season that wasn't' leaves behind, Spencer knows that it took a special group to create such great expectations. It was that unforgettable day in May last year that reminds her of that, and while many will try and turn the page to focus on what's ahead, the North Hampton, N.H., native took time to reflect on what made that particular day, as she puts it, 'Quintessentially DWR.'
As the weekend of May 15th came and went this spring – the weekend that would've marked my fourth appearance at the ACC Rowing Championship if not for the shortened season – I was presented with many memories of the year prior. Photos of my teammates embracing each other and grinning as they wielded silver and gold medals kept popping up across social media, and messages with teammates reminiscing on the joy of the year before crowded my phone. As a graduating senior, I have a seemingly inexhaustible array of memories (lucky for me, most of them fond) to look back at over my past four years of rowing. Choosing one above the others as the best is an impossible task, but experiencing an May without ACCs this year made me realize the singular significance of the 2019 championship in my Duke experience, and it is this memory I would like to share.
I knew the final day of the championship was going to be memorable from the moment I stepped into my seat from the launching dock on the last day of racing. Two Duke boats had already raced down the line with incredible finishes, each one coming in close behind the University of Virginia for second place. The pressure was mounting for the remaining boats to follow up their strong performance. I remember my hand shaking as we pushed off the warm, soggy wood of the Clemson dock, and hoping silently that the day would be memorable for the best reasons, willing my actions with each stroke I took to make it so. About 500 meters into our warmup, my flurry of nervous thoughts was suddenly halted.
Our coxswain, Tara, called us to stop rowing as the Grand Final of the First Varsity Four was about to come down the lanes beside us. From behind me my teammate, Sophie, broke in and exclaimed, "LOOK." I whipped around in my seat to see the Duke four in a commanding lead over every other boat on the course, the forms of my five teammates a blur of color. I remember my boatmates and I sitting there, breathless, not paying the slightest attention to the slightly alarming bobbing of our shell in the wake, as we saw our teammates cross the finish line almost five whole seconds ahead of second-place Syracuse. It was the first ACC gold medal in Duke Women's Rowing history. We screamed our lungs out cheering for them, with full-on tears streamed down our cheeks and we embraced each other across the riggers between our seats. They did it. I don't think I have ever felt more one with my teammates, inside and outside the gunwales of my boat, than I did in that moment.
I don't remember much of the rest of our warmup, but when we got to the start line, I felt propped up by the pride I had for my teammates and the desire to make them proud in turn. After perhaps the grittiest race of my life, we ended with a hard fought second place finish. At the end, we sat with legs dangling in the cool water, spent but smiling with the knowledge that we had almost certainly secured a bid for the NCAA championship, only the second in DWR history.
Back on the shore and among the huddle of the various team tents, memories of celebrating with teammates and coaches still brings a smile to my face to this day. In the post-race cold tubs, we laughed and clinked our chocolate milk pouches, and all around was a happy mess of people hugging and saying things along the lines of, "We finally did it. All of our work finally paid off." As I said these things myself, I knew, as I think my teammates did as well, that these phrases were just snapshots, that they couldn't possibly get at the bigger picture of our DWR journey. The path to that day last year had seen some seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and even with the word "finally" we knew our work was still far from over. We still had our sights on NCAAs, on winning the overall ACC title next time. But that May day solidified for me that path and showed me clearer than ever that our team was truly on its way.
On the grassy hill that serves as the seating for the awards ceremony, and on the bus ride home later that evening, I was reminded again and again of all the traits that made me love and admire my teammates more even than the victories we had won earlier in the day. They were the very same traits that I had experienced in my boat as we watched the Varsity Four win gold. As each subsequent Duke boat went up to the podium to receive their medals, every other girl on the team cheered louder than for their own boat. It's the semi-crazed looking photos of my teammates frozen mid leap, arms flung up in the air, as the awards are doled out that are my favorite to look back on. They represent the sheer heart that I'm proud to say our team holds, on that day and every day, along with the fierce support, resilience and dedication that also made that event what it was. The day was as quintessentially DWR as it could get, and that's what I love about it.
-Kiernan Spencer
#GoDuke
Players Mentioned
/ Rowing
Duke Athletics: A Tour of Campus
Saturday, October 19
Welcome to Duke
Saturday, October 19
A Century of Blue Devil Brilliance
Saturday, October 19
BDN Studios Presents: Relentless
Friday, October 11
