Varsity four makes NCAA finals

Wisconsin's varsity four took center stage on Saturday at the 2009 NCAA Rowing Championships as the UW eights had the day off, and the boat took full advantage of the attention, becoming the fourth boat in Badger history to make an NCAA Grand Final.

The varsity four left no doubt, as it rowed the fastest time of the morning in the fours to win the second semifinal. Wisconsin led from start to finish and clocked a 7:15.35 over 2000 meters to take the race.

'I thought it was a really, really solid race,' said senior four seat Brittany Rapp. 'We went into it knowing we needed to get into the top three and there was no tension and no pressure. As soon as we were up, all of us in the boat were thinking, `you are not coming anywhere near us. Just push away.'

'You could tell we were all committed as an entire boat. It was one of the best races I've ever been a part of. I don't generally look out of the boat, but I looked across and could see we were up on Cal and Stanford. I'm the last person in the boat and I'm up on their bow, I knew we were winning this. We took some moves for the alumni and for Wisconsin rowing as a whole and those were the best moves of the entire race.'

At the 500-meter mark, the Badgers held a very slight lead over Stanford, but extended it to over 1.6 seconds by 1000 meters. By 1500 meters, California had pushed past Stanford and closed to just over a second behind the first-place Badgers, but Wisconsin won going away with the quickest final 500 meters of the race.

Taking second place behind the Badgers was California, which crossed the line in 7:17.83. Finishing third and grabbing the final spot in the grand final was Stanford in 7:18.58. Ohio State, Michigan and USC rounded out semifinal No. 2.

Wisconsin's crew included coxswain Molly Evjen, Brittany Rapp, Briana Pittman, Bronwyn Knaebe and Kirsten Morelli.

'Because they are new and with every row they are getting better together, they were able to bring the rate up a little bit, so that helped,' said head coach Bebe Bryans. 'The crew is not rate dependent, they don't have to go up high to win. They are really powerful, but now they know they can go up a little bit. That only gives them more confidence going into tomorrow.'

In addition to Wisconsin, California and Stanford, Sunday's grand final will include semifinal No. 1 winner Clemson, as well as Yale and Virginia.

'We came with the goal with getting into the semifinals ' check, ' explained Rapp. 'Then it was the grand final ' check. We 've got act like this is what we do every day and not let it get to us. You never know what is going to happen tomorrow. We did what we needed to do to get where we want to be, from here it's, `let's go out there and kill it.'

The varsity four now has a chance to make Wisconsin rowing history. They are the fourth UW boat to make an NCAA grand final and look to surpass the 2006 second varsity eight. That boat took third at NCAAs for Wisconsin's top boat finish at the championships.

The Badger varsity eight and second varsity eight will also race on Sunday in their respective third level finals. Both crews will face Dartmouth, Harvard and Oregon State in their third level finals.

You can code=ncaa"> --> watch the racing Sunday at NCAA.com or you can follow along with live stats ( mobile stats ). Updates will also be available at twitter.com/BadgerRowing. The first UW race of the day will take place at 10:15 a.m., CT when the varsity four races for an NCAA title.

'We're excited for the varsity four and they are pretty happy about it,' concluded Bryans. 'They are going to lead the day for Wisconsin tomorrow and it will be fun to see everybody back in the water.

University of Wisconsin Athletics

Varsity four makes NCAA finals

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