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Women's Rowing Opens Spring Season at Cornell
March 30, 2002
ITHACA, NY - The varsity women's crew made it's usual trip up to Ithaca, NY, to mark the beginning of it's spring racing season on the Cayuga Lake Inlet. Based upon fall racing results, Cornell would go into the tri-meet as the favorite while cross-town rival, Georgetown, was added this year to round out the field.
The Cornell Big Red would sweep the day from the visiting DC crews, while GW finished with two second and two third place finishes. In the varsity eight race, Cornell and GW moved away from Georgetown right from the start. During the second 500, the two crews would battle back and forth, trading moves, attempting to break the other crew. But as they moved into the third 500, Cornell's power gave them the extra advantage over GW and they began to establish a lead. Over the last 750 meters, Cornell slowly moved away from GW to the delight of the hometown fans. This is the second year in a row that Cornell has won this event. Overall, GW leads the series over Cornell in the varsity eight 3-2.
"I am very happy with the performance of all our crews today," GW coach Steve Peterson said. "I think in the varsity race, the athletes really rowed a solid race, and stayed focused on what they needed to do. The first race of the year always has everyone anxious, and the rowers really showed some maturity and kept their composure. I was also extremely pleased with the performances of both our novice crews as well. Novice Coach Samantha Byrd has really done a nice job with them since the fall. This year, we were faced with having very few rowers with any high school experience. But the crews have improved a ton since then and I think today's results showed they could really have some good success this season. For all of the crews, there were a few mistakes that we will need to fix. But overall, this was a very good start to the spring season."
Conditions were ideal for racing as the temperature rose into the 60s and a slight breeze, which was constantly changing from head to tail and back, provided the only sign of a predicted storm which never came.
Results:
Varsity 8:
Cornell 6:41.5
George Washington 6:54.6
Georgetown 7:03.1
2nd Varsity 8:
Cornell 2V 7:06.0
Cornell 3V 7:12.4
George Washington 7:28.1
Novice 8:
Cornell 7:04.9
Georgetown 7:10.6*
George Washington 7:14.6
2nd Novice 8:
Cornell 7:12.7
George Washington 7:34.3
Georgetown 7:40.7
The women's crews will race four times over the course of the next weekend. On the morning of Saturday, April 6, the women will take on Boston University and the U.S. Naval Academy for the Playfair Cup. Later that day, GW will host MIT in the second half of their "Double Dual." Racing begins at 9:00 a.m. and until approximately 2:00 p.m. All racing can be seen from Washington Harbor.
For complete results visit the row2k website at: http://row2k.com/results/resultspage.cfm?UID=913895&cat=2
On Sunday, April 7, the women will travel to nearby Lorton, VA, to race in the Occoquan Sprints. There, the GW women will race twice in one day as they face crews from Virginia, George Mason, among other mid-Atlantic region universities. The GW women's events will begin at approximately 11:00 a.m. and finish by 4:00 p.m.
