This past weekend the Mercyhurst Womens Varsity 8+ won gold again at the SIRA regatta. The regatta was held in Oak Ridge Tennessee a beautiful southern town with a big focus on the sport of rowing. The town sits in a valley surrounded by mountains which enables the course to have low wind speeds, rarely creating any rough waters.
The Mercyhurst Varsity 8 was seeded first going into this 22 boat event, therefore their first heat was the easiest of 4. The high seeding and low level of competition allowed the Lakers to race a hard first half and a nice relaxed second half of the race. When I asked Jr. co captain Annie Schiller, when she started to back off the pressure she answered "when we crossed the 1000 meter mark I knew we were going to win easily and I probably dropped the pressure around 800 meters to go." She was right as the Lakers crossed the line rowing at a rate of 28 in comparison with their opponents averaging at about a 35 in a time of 7:09. This time was the fastest of all the heats that morning.
The team had to rest and recover after their first heat because their semi final was about 4 hours after their race. The semi final competition did pick up a little bit but since they had the fastest heat time they again got the easier competition. Going into the race everyone was very confident in their teammates and their abilities. "I know we will win it just might take a little bit longer to lose the rest of the boats" said Jr. Alicia Peterson. She was also right. Mercyhurst's competition did hang on a little bit longer this time making the Lakers row at full pressure until about 250 meters to go. The Lakers did win comfortably again with a time of 7:03. Second place was 11 seconds behind.
Finally it was the Grand Final, and the Lakers were nervous. Mercyhurst was able to escape meeting the second seeded team of the regatta, Grand Valley State, until now and they were not sure what to expect. Sr. Ali Bogart said "I know we will win, I just also know that they will give us a run for our money." At the start line Mercyhurst took off in second place to Nova South Eastern but stayed ahead of Grand Valley. Within strokes Mercyhurst and Grand Valley walked through Nova and began to separate themselves from the pack. They did not separate from each other though. Mercyhurst had a very small lead all the way to the 1500 meter mark. It wasn't until then that the Lakers were able to pull away, showing their level of fitness. The Lakers again won by about ten seconds but this time they could not lower the pressure.
The win in this event earned the Mercyhurst Womens Varsity 8 its second gold on the season and definitely not their last.
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