Rowing: WVU Takes Fifth at Dad Vails
May 16, 2005 02:54 PM | General
May 16, 2005
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - The West Virginia University rowing team's varsity eight boat finished an impressive fifth place at the prestigious Dad Vails Regatta in Philadelphia on Saturday, May 16.
The eight boat began its competition on Friday in the preliminaries with a second place showing with a time of 6:48.92. That time earned it a spot in the repechage and another shot at qualifying for racing on Saturday.
The Mountaineers did not disappoint in the next round as they took first in their repechage heat in 7:16.35, edging out second place Bucknell (7:17.73) and blowing away Ohio State (7:24.20), Penn State (7:30.12), Wichita State (7:43.41) and Michigan State (8:08.63).
The top three finishers from each repechage heat moved on to the semifinals and WVU's solid time gave it lane two on Saturday morning. In a tightly contested race the Mountaineer eight boat took second (7:30.84) to clip third place Vermont (7:31.46) for a spot in the finals. Purdue won the semifinal heat in a time of 7:28.56.
In Saturday afternoon's finals the varsity eight boat finished a strong day of racing with a fifth-place finish. WVU finished the course in 7:31.32 to beat Eastern Michigan (7:35.89) and finish behind Connecticut (7:23.24), Villanova (7:26.71), Drexel (7:29.61) and Purdue (7:30.40).
The Mountaineers also competed in varsity four competition and novice four competition at the regatta. The varsity four boat took second place in its preliminary heat with a time of 7:49.50, but did not advance to the finals as it finished fourth in the semis in 8:58.95. The novice eight boat did not make it out of the preliminaries as it took fourth in 8:17.66.
