George Washington University Athletics
Colonials Second at A-10 Women's Rowing Championships
4/24/2000 12:00:00 AM | Crew
GW head coach Steve Peterson, now in his fourth year at GW, was named the league's Coach of the Year in a vote by the Conference's head coaches. The GW women's varsity 8 has been ranked in the nation's Top 25 in each of the last three polls.
"I am obviously honored to be selected coach of the year by the other head coaches, but I would much rather have won the team trophy," Peterson said. "The athletes have been working hard to beat UMass and this year looked like we would finally be able to knock them off. I think our crews were rowing well, and executing their race plans well. We just got beat in some very key events, namely the varsity and second varsity eights."
The GW novice women's crews dominated the competition as they won all three of their races. GW novice women's coach Angela Hart was tossed into the river by her athletes to celebrate her crews' victories.
At the varsity level UMass got the better of the GW crews for the fourth straight year, and walked away with the team Championship. The GW varsity, which was ranked first in the A-10 going into the race, was overpowered at the start by the UMass crew and tried to close the gap the rest of the way down the course. They were never able to get closer than one boat length in the end.
For a complete listing of the A-10 results and times, please visit www.row2k.com and click on results.
"This loss will hurt us a little in the rankings, but we still have a shot at going to the NCAA's (top 18 schools in the country are selected)," Peterson added. "We have two weeks now to focus on our race with Princeton and Georgetown, then a week after that it is the Eastern Sprints Championship. These will be critical for us if we are going to get an NCAA bid."
Next up for the Colonials Crew program is a four-team race with Georgetown, Virginia and Princeton on Saturday, May 6 in Princeton, NJ. The GW men's crews will take on Georgetown Sunday, May 7 in a best-of-seven sprints challenge on the Potomac River.
