Badgers 10th At NCAA Rowing
June 01, 2008 | Women's Rowing
Wins by the second varsity eight in the petite final and the varsity eight in the third-level final pushed the Wisconsin women's rowing team into 10th-place at the 2008 NCAA Rowing Championships on Sunday. The finish for the Badgers at the three-day long event equaled the program's second-highest result in five NCAA trips. Racing took place on Lake Natoma.
'Today was as positive and as accomplished racing as we've ever had, ' said head coach Bebe Bryans. 'Everybody came ready to race and everybody executed. They improved their performance again. I think, is really proud, as they should be. It was a great Wisconsin effort.'
In all three races of the day, the Badgers started quickly, as they have all weekend. In the varsity eight, Wisconsin grabbed the lead early and ran out front to win the third-level final and take 13th overall. Their time of 6:41.98 would have placed third in the petite final, and ninth overall.
'I think we went out to show people that we were here to race,' said senior varsity eight five-seat Denise Kragness. 'No matter what the outcomes were from the other day, we were going to try our hardest. We wanted to get a really good time that would compete with the other times and that is what we did. We executed exactly what we wanted to do.'
Finishing behind the Badgers in the third-level final were Clemson in 6:43.33, Ohio State in 6:45.83 and Tennessee in 6:49.19.
Yale took the varsity eight national title with a time of 6:34.05.
The second varsity eight took first in the petite final and seventh overall with a 6:50.34. Again, the UW's posted a fast time as their performance would have been fifth in the grand final. The Badgers took the petite final by about a half boat length over Washington State. The Huskies clocked a 6:51.42 for the 2000 meters. Yale, Michigan State, Harvard and Princeton rounded out the race.
It was Brown taking the second varsity eight national title in 6:42.42.
In the first race of the day for the Badgers, Wisconsin's varsity four jumped out to the lead, and finished third in the petite final and ninth overall. The UW timed 7:43.39 and with open water behind the first two crews of Ohio State (7:34.33) and Washington State (7:38.47).
Washington won the varsity four title in 7:24.75.
In the team competition, Brown won for the event for the second consecutive year and for an NCAA record sixth time since the event began in 1997. The Bears scored 67 points with third place in the varsity eight, a win in the second varsity eight and third in the varsity four. Washington collected 59 points for second, while California's 53 points were good for third as a team.
Wisconsin collected 25 points to place 10th out of 12 teams and just one point behind ninth-place Harvard. Washington State placed eighth with 30 points.
Bryans concluded, 'We've been talking about competing, but we 've been of a mindset that, `yeah, we want to go [to NCAAs]. We want to qualify. '
'Talk is one thing but experience is a completely different thing. Now they all have experience that we can be competitive and we can shed the expectation of where we should be and just go for it. That is going to be the difference with the coaches' expectations of the athletes and hopefully more importantly the athletes' expectations will be of themselves.
'We are doing the work. We are not going to do more work. We are going to do better work. We are going to have a different expectation on day one.'
For the seven seniors at the NCAA championships, this weekend marked their last chance to race for the storied Badger crew program.
Kragness summed up their careers, 'Hopefully, all of us seniors left an impression on this team and I really hope that next year they can do a really good job, try to return to this place and do even better.'
Revisit UWBADGERS.com for full photo galleries from all three days of Wisconsin's NCAA rowing appearance later.
