The women's openweight and lightweight rowing teams finished their fall season over the weekend with strong performances at the Southland Regatta.
The Badgers traveled to Blue Island, Ill., to take on Big Ten rivals Michigan State, Minnesota and Indiana, among others. The openweight A"" boat took third in their 5K heat and also took third in the finals, a 2K race.
Wisconsin's ""B"" and ""E"" boats placed third in their finals as well. Head coach Bebe Bryans said though the team finished lower than she wanted, she was still pleased with their performance.
""The varsity openweights were hoping to finish a little bit better than we did, but overall we were pleased with our performances, and we had some particular technical things that we were successful doing,"" she said.
Bryans said the novice team in particular had a strong showing in Illinois.
""Most of those kids are walk-ons, so they're just getting started, and we had some good leadership from the recruits,"" she said.
Bryans said the race was structured similarly to spring regattas and UW's performance was hopefully a good indicator of things to come.
""We also made some good positive changes between the morning and the afternoon races that I think were reflective of how they are set up to race in the springtime,"" she said.
The lightweight varsity ""B"" boat finished eighth in their 5K head race, and the ""D"" boat placed 16th in their head race. Head coach Erik Miller said the race was a good showing for the lightweights and that the team did much better than last year.
""I was very proud of the effort we put down, and I was really happy for the team,"" he said.
Miller said one of the most noticeable highlights of the race was that the lightweights stayed closer than they usually do to Wisconsin's openweight boats.
""It was a stronger performance against our openweights than we usually have, and I think the openweights had a good, strong performance today,"" he said. ""That really sets us up well at the end of our fall season and going into winter
training.""
The Badgers head into the boathouse now
for indoor training. Openweights will compete for the first time this spring Feb. 28 in Indiana. The lightweights will head to Austin, Tex., March 20 for their first race of the spring season.
- uwbadgers.com contributed to this
report.
