George Washington University Athletics
Women's Crew 14th at Eastern Sprints
5/15/2000 12:00:00 AM | Crew
"The team did well," GW head coach Steve Peterson said. "I feel we really raced to our potential. I think all of the crews were rowing technically very well, we were just overpowered. Racing into a headwind is always going to be better for the bigger, stronger crews.'
The GW varsity battled 2,000 meters against Cornell, exchanging the lead several times. In the last 500 meters, however, Cornell was able to use their size and strength to overpower GW. That setback placed the GW crew in the third level final (racing for places 13-18). In the final, Navy jumped out to a huge lead it never relinquished. GW gave chase and moved away from the other crews in the final, but was forced to settle for second place (and a 14th overall finish in the Eastern Sprints League).
The Eastern Sprints league is the fastest league in the country. Twelve of the 18 schools are currently ranked among the top 20 crews in the country, and 15 have been ranked in the top 20 at least one time this year. Brown University, the reigning national champion (and #2 in the nation) won the championship with a very solid performance and goes into the NCAA's ready to repeat as National Champions. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Virginia and Boston University are all solid contenders for medals at the NCAA's and really showed their speed this past weekend. Combined, those six schools make up six of the top eight crews in the nation, according to Peterson.
"All in all, I am pleased," Peterson said. "This was a solid way for the team to finish the season. I am sad we didn't make it to the NCAAs, but we raced as well as we could on this day."
