After months of preparation, the Ohio University rowing clubs are ready to make a splash.
This weekend, the crews will be going to Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to test their mettle at the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association's (SIRA) championship regatta. The event will kick off the men's and women's spring seasons and will be the first time some of the rowers have competed.
The women's novice eight-person boat will be the first boat to compete this weekend on Saturday at 8:30 a.m., said club president Tegan Mason, a sophomore studying human biology.
[SIRA] is one of the most prestigious regattas we go to in the season
she said.
Rowing is a sport where groups of four or eight people are led by a coxswain who commands the rudder and serves as the eyes for the backwards-facing rowers. In longer races, two boats are pitted against each other, while in shorter races, multiple teams row against each other.
Crews divide the rowing calendar into two seasons: a fall season that features races of 5,000 meters, and a spring season with 2,000-meter stretches.
At the Columbus Fall Classic in October, the two women's novice teams secured third and ninth out of their nine-crew field. Later that month at the Speakmon Memorial Regatta in Columbus, the women's varsity eight-person boat took second out of three.
Spring is what we really build up to said Jill Starkey, a rower and former president of the club.
Since the fall season, women's crew teams have had morning practices and conditioning Monday through Friday, and sometimes on Saturday, Mason explained.
When winter prevented them from practicing outside, the club conditioned in Ping, but when temperatures rose, Mason added, the team trained at Stroud's Run at 5:30 a.m. After two hours on the water, she said, they would de-rig the boats and arrive back at campus around 8 a.m.
Getting up in morning sucks at first ... but you do more by 8 a.m. than some people do all day said novice coach Jocelyn Vivona as she reassured anyone interested in getting their feet wet last fall.
For spring break, the club traveled to South Carolina to go to Camp Robert M. Cooper, known as Camp Bob throughout the collegiate rowing world, Mason said.
There, the crews maintained an intensive training regimen, which included three-a-days and technique work, Mason said.
In the coming weekends, the women's crew teams will travel to West Virginia and Michigan. To cap off their season, they will travel to Philadelphia for the Dad Vail Regatta May 8 and 9, the country's largest collegiate regatta.
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Adam Liebendorfer
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After much practice, the Ohio University rowing teams are finally ready to compete. The crews will compete in Oak Ridge, Tenn., this weekend (Sam Saccone / For The Post).
