Both men's and women's Rowing teams tasted success in their respective competitions over the weekend. The women's openweight rowing team, ranked No. 18 nationally, faced Minnesota and Oregon State, ranked 10th and 17th respectively. Teams from Drake and Iowa were also battling in double dual competition Saturday.
In its first race, Wisconsin's Varsity boat cruised to a time of 7:44.71, defeating Oregon State by under a second with a time of 7:45.27. Wisconsin also secured victories by the second varsity team and both novice teams.
Wisconsin's only losses came from the varsity eight division. This successful competition has brought improvement and experience. ""The racing was really successful to us. I think we learned a lot,"" head coach Bebe Bryans said. ""Our novices got their oars wet on the race course and did a great job of pulling out some really close ones ... We were able to make some good improvements from the morning to the afternoon.""
The Badgers next competition, the annual Midwest Rowing Championships, will take place here in Madison Saturday.
The Badger men's Rowing team also earned victory on the second day of the Windermere Rowing Classic in Redwood City, Calif. The Badgers, ranked eighth nationally, face stiff competition in a California-Berkeley team ranked fourthin the polls.
Wisconsin started off the competition with the freshman eight boat. Cal's time of 5:54.56 topped the Badger's time of 6:16.31. Wisconsin's second varsity eight boat finished in a time of 4:05.68 defeating Cal's time of 4:10.57.
The victory was the team's third of the weekend including victories over Washington and Stanford. Head coach Chris Clark expressed his approval by saying, ""They had a pretty amazing performance on their part. Not only did they win those races, but they won them easily. That is good for us because it shows we have a lot of depth.""
The varsity eight boat was the last to compete for the Badgers. This time California-Berkeley was just too much for the Badgers as they pulled away to win the race 5:49.76 to 5:56.24. The Badgers next competition, the annual Midwest Rowing Championships, will be here in Madison, Saturday.
—uwbadgers.com
contributed to this report
