Indiana University Athletics
Indiana Rowing Heads to Big Ten Championships
4/29/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Rowing
April 29, 2010
Live Results | Championship Headquarters
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The Indiana rowing team will travel to Laingsburg, Mich., to race in the 2010 Big Ten Championships on Lake Ovid at Sleepy Hollow State Park on Saturday, May 1, with Michigan State serving as this year's host. Saturday's regatta consists of 2,000-meter pieces broken up into two sessions.
The Hoosiers enter Saturday morning's heats seeded fourth in the first Novice 8 race, sixth in the second Novice 8 race and seventh in the first Varsity 4, second Varsity 4, first Varsity 8 and second Varsity 8 races. The morning heats open at 8 a.m. ET with the second Novice 8 race and are slated to end at 10:30 a.m. with a first Varsity 8. The Championship Session is scheduled to begin at Noon with the second Novice 8 Petit Final and will conclude with the first Varsity 4 Grand Final at 2:45 p.m. The awards ceremony will take place at 4 p.m.
After a week away from racing, Indiana and head coach Steve Peterson head into the championship season with added confidence after a successful regular season.
"By design, we don't have a race before Big Ten Championships," Peterson said. "One reason is for the academic side of things with finals week coming up right after Big Ten's, it gives our student-athletes a little bit of time to think about school work without the pressure of a race. The second reason is that we definitely want to recover a little bit and also put together final preparation as far as race plan and strategy. The idea is to try peak for Big Ten's. Not having a race the week before allows for us to mentally, emotionally and physically to recover."
The Hoosiers are coming off a successful weekend, April 17-18, at the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships in Oak Ridge, Tenn., where the second Varsity 8 crew won its grand final in 7:11.60, topping Oklahoma (7:16.89) by more than five seconds. IU's Novice 8 crew also won its final when it defeated Alabama (7:20.10) by four seconds with a time of 7:16.10.
On Saturday, April 17, the Hoosiers' first Varsity 8 crew finished just under one second behind Oklahoma with a time of 6:38.38. In Sunday's grand final, Indiana finished less than a second behind the Sooners (2nd, 6:55.09) for third place. IU defeated Grand Valley (4th, 6:56.43), Tulsa (5th, 7:00.74) and Alabama (6th, 7:03.99). In the first Varsity 4 race on Saturday, Indiana finished in second (7:39.89) by less than a second to Alabama (7:39.10). The Hoosiers beat the Sooners (3rd, 7:41.85), Nova SE (4th, 8:10.18) and SMU (5th, 8:14.22). On Sunday, IU's Varsity 4 crew started off strong, but fell behind in the middle of the race and finished in sixth with a time of 8:28.43.
"One of the big things is that the results this year have proven that we have one of our strongest groups since we've been here at Indiana," said Peterson. "Our expectations are to obviously go as fast as we can. As a team, we're looking to finish higher than what we have in the past and I think we have the capability of doing that. I think we can surprise some people. I'm not sure if people really expect out of us what we expect out of ourselves and we're really excited about heading into Saturday."
Live results for Saturday's Big Ten Championship will be available on IUHoosiers.com. Following this weekend's racing, Indiana will head back to Oak Ridge, Tenn., May 15-16, to compete in the 2010 Aramark NCAA South/Central Region Sprints on Melton Lake.
