George Washington University Athletics
George Washington University
Head of the Potomac (women)
Women's Rowing Hosts Head of the Potomac
9/22/2002 12:00:00 AM | Crew
Sept. 22, 2002
WASHINGTON, DC - The GW Women's Rowing team opened the fall season by hosting the Head of the Potomac on the Potomac River Saturday. The race is a three-mile endurance regatta, which starts near Fletcher's Cove and winds down the Potomac River, finishing at the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. Crews are started every 15 seconds and race against the clock, with the crew recording the fastest time being declared the winner. Conditions were good for racing, although a strong headwind developed through the course of the day, making for slower than normal times.
During the fall season, collegiate crews don't just race against other collegiate crews. For the college rowers, early fall races like the Head of the Potomac leave them with little time to prepare.
For the GW women, the race was being taken as more of a workout, rather than a race. With school starting a week later, and the regatta being scheduled a week earlier, the GW crews were left with only five practices prior to the race. But since there is no substitute for racing experience, the crews took to the water to gauge their speed against crews from Georgetown and Navy.
In the first race of the day for the GW crews, the varsity women's eight came in third place, about 15 seconds behind the winning Georgetown crew and five seconds behind the second place crew from Water Street Rowing, a local club. GW Head Coach Steve Peterson commented, "Although we lost to Georgetown, I thought it was a good race for the women. Georgetown has been on the water since the week before Labor day, so they definitely had an advantage in practie time over us. However, I know we have the stronger athletes, and feel like we had a chance to win the race."
In GW's second race of the day, the Colonials finished fifth. Again, the top Georgetown crew took first, with a crew from Navy and two club crews finishing ahead of GW. Peterson stated, "The second varsity rowed well, but, like the varsity, we were under stroking (taking less strokes per minute) than the other crews. That is an obvious sign of a lack of water time. As with the first varsity, I think as we get more practice time on the water, the results will definitely change."
The high point of the day for the GW crews came in the last event. The GW women raced two fours in the women's four with coxswain event and placed third and eighth. The third-place finish was especially good for GW since they defeated the top Navy and Georgetown crews. The GW crew of Molly Hueller, Regina Cambilargiu, Kristen Salman, Brynn Kowlaski, and Liz Bissinger lost to two club crews Sagamore Rowing Club abd Capital Rowing club) but finished six seconds ahead of fourth-place Navy and more than 20 seconds ahead of the fifth-place crew, also from Navy.
"I was extremely excited to see the results from the four," Peterson added. "The women went out in the four for the first time yesterday (Friday) and had ony one row in the boat before racing. To beat the crews from Navy, who have been practicing in the fours for three weeks is great. Based upon last year's results, Navy is expected to be strong this year, and for our women to knock them off with this little time on the water bodes well for our crew." stated Peterson. The women will finally get a chance to get in some practice time before racing as they now have almost a month before their next race, the Head of the Charles in Boston on October 20.
For complete results visit the row2k website at: http://row2k.com/results/resultspage.cfm?UID=913895&cat=2
