Women's Crew Through Two Days at NCAAs
May 31, 2008 | Women's Rowing
One day remains in the 2008 rowing season for the Wisconsin women's openweights after the second varsity eight and varsity four raced in the repechage heats during day two of the 2008 NCAA Rowing Championships held at Lake Natoma on Saturday morning.
On the shortest Division I race schedule day of the three-day event, Wisconsin's second varsity eight got in on the action first.
Like the varsity eight did twice on Friday, the second varsity eight finished just one spot from making the next round. In this case it was the third-place Badgers falling just short of qualifying for Sunday's grand final.
Winner of the bronze medal at the 2006 NCAA championships, the Badgers timed 6:55.90 over 2000 meters to finish behind second-place Tennessee by slightly open water. The Lady Vols clocked a 6:51.84 for the final Grand Final spot. Washington, which was one of three schools to send all three of its boats to Grand Finals, won the repechage in 6:49.28. Rounding out the race was fourth-place Michigan State (7:02.08) and fifth-place Princeton (7:09.32).
The Badger second varsity eight will now race on Sunday in the petite final at 10:30 a.m. PT against Washington State, Yale, Michigan State, Harvard and Princeton.
'We were looking for good starts, but we wanted a little more consistent performance in the second and third 500 hundreds,' said head coach Bebe Bryans. 'They were definitely better, but we still have room for improvement tomorrow.
In the varsity four, Wisconsin crossed the finish line in 7:52.25 for fourth place in its repechage heat. The top two boats advanced to Sunday's Grand Final, while the rest will take part in the petite final.
California (7:32.06) and Brown (7:32.21) grabbed the two Grand Final spots to join Washington as the overall team championship favorites by virtue of having all three boats rowing for gold. Ohio State's 7:38.58 took third place, while Harvard's time of 8:04.84 placed fifth.
Wisconsin will race in the petite final on Sunday at 10 a.m. PT against Ohio State, Washington State, Princeton, Harvard and Tennessee.
The UW will also race its varsity eight on Sunday in the third-level final. The boat, which had Saturday off, will race Clemson, Ohio State and Tennessee for places 13-16.
'We did a good job improving on yesterday's performance,' said Bryans. 'Obviously, we really wanted to make the grand finals. There are no slow heats here. There is no slow anything here. We just got outraced today.'
To read today's blog about why you should never wear red at the start of a race, postid=980"> --> click here . Look for a photo gallery later today.
Check back for tomorrow's blog and race coverage at UWBADGERS.COM.
'Live and learn,' concluded Bryans. 'It is tough to learn here, but the good news is we are here this year and there are a lot of young kids in these boats and they are fired up. They are fired up for tomorrow and they are fired up for Tuesday when they start training for next year.'
