Fall 2008 Women's Crew Re-Cap

It was a wonderful fall season filled with strong racing and a lot of development.  With twenty three women on the roster this was the largest group in several years.  With over half of this group novices, it was a lot of hard work on everybody's part to get up to speed.  A special thanks to Assistant Coach Corinne Linderman '07 who brought an enthusiastic group of novices a long way, laying the foundation for a second varsity 8 this spring!

The team raced three times during the season with strong showings at each.

The Textile River Regatta

The Varsity 8 placed 8th of 18 in the Club 8.  Their time of 23:45.3 was a close finish to Tufts (23:44.7), Wellesley (23:41.4), CRI (23:41.7). The Novice 8 debuted with a Bronze medal performance and the Open 4's placed 11th and 18th of 27 with just a few practices together in those boats!  Special congratulations to Senior Amanda Ruksznis who attempted her first race in a Single!  She won the Club 1x and her strong performance would have placed her 2nd in the Open event!

The First Annual Quinsigamond Snake Regatta

This proved to be a wonderful regatta with several competitive teams in attendance.  We raced both 1V and 2V eights and were pleased with the efforts of the athletes.  The 1V placed 7^th of 21 and turned a one second deficit at the Textile to a one second advantage over Tufts!  Our 2V proved there wonderful spirit when a broken seat minutes into racing forced the boat to race by 6's.  Despite this handicap they managed to beat several other crews and maintained a positive outlook as they finished their Fall season.

The Head of the Charles
What a great day of racing!  The Varsity 8 finished 30th of 44 crews in a very tight field.  With half of the boat new to the varsity our goal was to achieve the automatic bid by placing in the top 50% of the field.  Unfortunately we missed this goal by 15 seconds but were on the heals of many of our traditional rivals.  The women felt they had a great row, rowed to their immediate potential, and now set off to winter training hoping to raise the threshold of that potential.