CLEMSON, S.C. — The Clemson Tigers used a hot streak at Friday’s heats of the ACC Rowing Championship to enter Saturday’s finals boasting plenty of momentum. For the first time since 2017, all five of Clemson’s boats qualified for the grand finals at the ACC Rowing Championship, which is being hosted at Clemson’s Lake Hartwell docks for the 10th consecutive year.
On a warm day featuring light crosswinds, the preliminary races of the 2019 ACC Rowing Championship were held, with the 3V8, 2V4, 1V4, 2V8 and 1V8 heats being held in that order. The races were broken up into two heats of four or five boats competing in each.
In addition to Clemson, Boston College, Duke, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Virginia rounded out the 9-team field at the annual event. Every program fielded a boat in each race, and the top three boats from each heat qualified for the 6-boat grand finals on Saturday morning. The remaining three boats will race in the petite finals.
Clemson finished in the top three in each of the five heats for the first time since 2016. As a result, the Tigers will field a boat in all of the grand finals. Clemson placed second in its respective heat of the 1V4, 2V4 and 2V8 races and finished with the third-fastest times in its 1V8 and 3V8 heats. The Tigers’ shining performance came in the 2V8 race, when its boat coxed by Erin Murphy recorded the third-fastest time overall out of all nine boats.