They live on a mixed farm near Oamaru and only started rowing two years ago when coach Stewart Mitchell, of the Oamaru Rowing Club, invited pupils to join his training squad.
Mitchell, Owen Gould and other coaches are keen to rekindle the glory days of Oamaru rowing, when New Zealand Olympic coach Rusty Robertson coached the club in the 1960s.
The Kearney twins also won a gold and silver medal at the Maadi Cup last year, at Lake Karapiro.
The twins, and other members of the 26-strong squad, have helped St Kevin's become the top rowing school in Otago.
Two years ago, Otago schools won a gold and silver medal in the Maadi Cup at Lake Ruataniwha.
Last year, they won a gold, silver and bronze medal at Lake Karapiro.
It was a significant improvement this year with five medals - one gold, two silver and two bronze and three of the medals were won by St Kevin's crews.
The 15-year-old Kearney twins won a silver medal together when they finished narrowly behind the Southland Girls' High School crew in the girls under-16 double sculls, in a time of 8min 27.02sec.
Because of the atrocious weather conditions during the week, all the finals were held on Saturday.
The 42-event finals programme had to be condensed, with rowers getting a shorter recovery time between races.
This meant that the twins' double sculls was held just an hour after they had won a bronze medal in the girls under-16 coxed four in 8min 15.09sec.
The other members of the crew were Bethany Robertson, Georgia Tangney and cox Sophie Moynihan.
The gold medal came in the eight, when the fours crew was joined by Eilee Robinson, Lucy Fauth, Brittany More and Loren Haggerty.
It was a tight race for the first 1000m with Rangi Ruru, of Christchurch, putting on a burner at halfway.
St Kevin's made a move with 750m left and moved into the lead with the other crews giving chase.
With 300m left the cox called for extra effort and St Kevin's jumped to a clear water lead and won going away by 5sec from Rangi Ruru, in a time of 7min 00.59sec.
Waikato Diocesan was third.
There was a special bonus for St Kevin's when the novice girls under-18 crew of Katherine Hope, Lydia Inglis, Brittany Wallis, Kerry Bryant and cox Lauren Godsall finished third in the B final in 8min 07.57sec.
One of the best Otago performances came from Saasha Bruce (Mount Aspiring) who finished second in the girls under-18 single sculls in 8min 45.31sec.
It was good enough to get her a New Zealand junior trial.
She had earlier finished fourth in the girls under-17 single sculls in 9min 00.65sec.
The other medal went to the Kavanagh College girls under-15 double sculls of Zoe McBride and Hannah Duggan who finished third in 8min 20.83sec.
McBride also reached the final of the under-17 single sculls and finished eighth in 9min 23.87sec.
The Dunstan girls under-16 double sculls of Caitlin Lowe and Leah Morait finished fourth in 8min 29.81sec.
In the boys under-18 coxed four, the Mount Aspiring crew of Greg Redai, Rob Saunders, Finlay Meldrum, Matt Jackson and cox Maddi Kirk was fourth in 7min 19.49sec.
The Dunstan four of Isaac Scherp, Mark Duncan, Matt Whittaker, Brett Harris and cox Alex Fisher was fifth in the same race in 7min 33.37sec.
The Otago Boys under-17 coxed four of Lachlan Landals, Brodie Hume, Cooper Gilmour, Ken McLellan and cox Aaron Woodhead was fifth in 7min 24.38sec.
The Mount Aspiring boys under-16 double sculls of Dominic Schwarz and Lee Martin won the B final in 9min 06.78sec.
The St Hilda's girls under-17 double sculls of Grace Scown and Anna McAslan won the B final in 8min 27.63sec.
Hamilton Boys' High School won the two big events at the regatta, the Springbok Shield in the boys under-18 four in 6min 51.96sec, and the Maadi Cup in the boys under-18 eight in 5min 55.64sec.
Westlake Boys' was runner-up in both events, Auckland Grammar was third in the eight and St Paul's Collegiate was third in the four.
