The women’s crew team showed great effort, but struggled this weekend in races against talented Amherst and Williams teams at the Little Three Regatta.
The varsity eight boat, rowed by Beth Ogata ’09, Linnea Damer ’10, Deirdre Salsich ’07, Elaine Lauriat’09, Sam Schilit ’10, Eve Mayberger ’09, Radoslava Petrova ’07, Katie Boyce-Jacino ’10, and cox Jinny Jang ’08, finished the two thousand meter Onota River course in 7:51.0, 54.4 seconds behind Williams, currently ranked first in Division III. The Cards took fourth place overall, behind both the Williams “B” and novice boats.
“We started the varsity eight race a little crooked because the starter wouldn’t allow our coxswain to account for the wind while lining up the boat,” Lauriat said. “Racing the varsity eight against Williams is tough because they have such incredible depth, whereas we really don’t. They have a big enough team to field three full eights, but we only have one.”
Later in the day, the Varsity four boat, rowed by Ogata, Damer, Salsich, Lauriat, and coxswain Amy Nebenhaus ’07, finished its race in 8:22.2, 6.6 seconds behind Amherst and 10.4 seconds in front of Williams’ second varsity.
“We got ahead of Williams pretty quickly, but couldn’t quite catch Amherst,” Lauriat said. “Similar to the race against Tufts, the four of us were in our second race of the day, while the Amherst crew was fresh. Regardless, we managed to stay with Amherst the whole way, leaving Williams behind. It’s a testament to the amazing strength of our boat that we kept the race so close despite being tired after already rowing in the eight,” Lauriat said.
Up next for the team is a race next Saturday against Connecticut College, Trinity College and Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Cardinals’ last faced Trinity and Conn. last April, when the varsity eight finished in fourth place behind Trinity, Trinity “B,” and Conn. with a time of 7:23.6. The varsity four finished with a time of 7:56.4, good enough for third place behind Conn. and Conn. “B,” but 20.5 seconds in front of Trinity.
The following weekend the team will compete at the New England Championships, also in Worcester.
“We’re looking forward to the New England Championships, where fours and eights race on separate days, with morning heats and afternoon finals on each day,” Lauriat said. “Since our crew is used to racing twice a day, we should be very competitive in those races. We’re hoping to get rematches against these crews who have beaten us so narrowly.”
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