Women’s crew remained unbeaten in varsity races this season, beating out St. Lawrence University and Skidmore College yesterday. The first, second and third varsity 8 boats for the Blue and Gold all won their respective races, with the first varsity 8 competing against another nationally ranked opponent in No. 7 St. Lawrence.
Despite a strong headwind and heavy chop in the last 500-meters the first varsity 8 looked strong, posting a time of 7:47.1, and beating out No. 7 St. Lawrence by 8.2 seconds. Skidmore finished third with a time of 8:13.0.
“It was definitely a different race than our first two,” junior Kerin Murphy, who rows in the first varsity 8, said. “In terms of focus and holding it in there with all the different winds conditions, again, we just go out there and just pull our hardest.”
With this being the women’s crew’s last home Regatta before finishing the season on the road and going into championship season, the seniors on the team we recognized following the last race.
“We have power moves throughout the race, and I do a senior call where I call out the senior’s names,” senior Kaitlin Ahl, who is the coxswain for the first varsity 8, said. “It’s motivating. As we were rowing back in I said, “Well, we kind of defended our home turf.”
The women’s crew second varsity 8 outpaced the competition, as the only second varsity boat at the meet to break eight minutes, finishing with a time of 7:55.1. St. Lawrence’s second varsity 8 boat finished second with a time of 8:07.8 and Skidmore came in third with a time of 8:27.6.
In the race of the third varsity 8 boats, the Bombers completed the sweep of varsity races with a time of 8:16.8, finishing almost 10 seconds ahead of St. Lawrence. Skidmore finished third with a time of 9:32.8.
“We’ve only been in this line-up a few times this week,” junior Ruthie Goff, who rows in the third varsity 8, said. “But we had a really good practice yesterday, so we were feeling really good coming into today.”
The Blue and Gold dropped the novice 4 race to St. Lawrence, coming in second with a time of 9:46.7 to St. Lawrence’s 9:25.8.
As women’s crew prepares to compete on the road for the rest of the season and going into the championship run, Murphy said that everybody is working together to make sure that everything is clicking and fitting together.
“We’re continuing to build our stroke rate a little bit and kind of work at a higher rate,” Murphy said. “So that is one of our biggest focuses and just trying to pull all the pieces together as we move toward the end of the season.”
Women’s crew returns to competition against College of the Holy Cross, Tufts University, Connecticut College and Colby College at 8 a.m. Saturday in Worcester, Mass.
