Student Life

Issue date: 4/7/06 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Courtesy of Stephen Moursund The women's crew team won first place in the varsity eight person, varsity four person and novice eight person events last weekend at the University Rowing Association conference championships.

Media Credit: Courtesy of Stephen Moursund The Wash. U. men's varsity crew team puts their back into it during a regatta last fall.

They may have battled the wind and storms on the bus ride back from Pittsburgh, but the men's and women's crew teams both rode back to Washington University with victories in hand.

Last weekend, both squads traveled to Lake Arthur just north of Pittsburgh to compete in the University Rowing Association (URA) Conference Championships. Both men's and women's teams won the team points trophies - the first time in the University's history and the three-year history of the competition.

"It was a solid performance and it's hard to pick out individual performances from such an outstanding crowd," said crew coach Cameron Carter. "Everyone worked hard and it paid off because we really showed up."

With early morning practices and training around 20 hours a week, plus traveling to and from regattas, crew saw its hard efforts pay off, particularly in beating last year's overall points winner, Rochester.

Along with the University and Rochester, five other teams took part in the competition - University of Chicago, Brandeis, Case Western, Carnegie Mellon and New York University.

"It's a really big event for us because we're competing with other schools in our same academic plane," said men's captain and senior Stephen Moursund. "These are our peers."

The men were initially caught off guard when Rochester won the men's varsity four and eight-man races, but the squad pulled through in its remaining events took the title by three points.

The event involved sprint races of 2000 meters with different boat set-ups. Highlights of the conference championships included first place finishes by the men in the novice eight-person and junior varsity four-person. The women rowed to first place finished in the varsity eight-person, varsity four-person and novice eight-person.

Second and third places were taken across the board for both the men's and women's teams, boosting both teams to their overall point victories.

"We did what we came to do," said women's crew captain and junior Kathryn Roberts. "Everyone medaled and there was a lot of silver and gold."

The women's team found particular strength in its novice teams this year.

"We all really got it together this weekend," continued Roberts, "and it was an amazing performance from our novices."

"The freshmen really showed up," said Carter, "and all these girls really rise to the challenge, always taking their performance up a notch [during competition]."

Likewise, the men's novices aided the team's victory.

"The novices really helped carry the regatta," said Moursund. "We only have three seniors this year and the team is mainly sophomores and freshmen, so it's only going to get better from here."

"We were really pumped beforehand," said sophomore Kevin Sullivan, "and we really pulled through for the win. We hope to have a repeat performance next year and we have a lot of potential for a strong team next year as well."

After an exciting weekend, crew is looking forward to this weekend's competition in which Emory University, absent at the URA Conference Championships, will be competing.

"We're going to have our hands full next weekend," said Carter, "but [with Emory there] we can truly claim the top spot."

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