Rowing its way to a bid

The Gonzaga women's crew team started the spring season off strong as the varsity 8+ boat defeated the No. 15 Oregon State Beavers on Dexter Lake in Oregon on March 20.

The Beavers, however, won the junior varsity 8+ race, the second varsity 4+ and the freshmen 8+ races. Both the junior varsity and second varsity boats hung tough with the Beavers through the first 1,000 meters of the 2,000 meter race but fell behind after hitting a few wakes.

Tumultuous weather conditions and powerful head winds forced the race to be moved from the morning to the afternoon, which consequently had an effect on all of the boats' performances.

"We sat around and waited for six hours until the afternoon," sophomore Paula Welly, who rows in the Junior Varsity boat, said. "In the afternoon it was sunny out so all the [non-rowing] boats were out on the lake. So there were wakes in different parts of the race, so it throws stuff off."

The victory was a crucial one for the varsity boat, as it looks to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA championships based on its regular season performance now that the Pac-10 Championships, and its top three automatic bids to NCAA's, have been closed to out of conference teams.

"We would have to get it through a bid this year," Welly said. "If Oregon wins the Pac-10s we can be like back in the beginning of the season we were within this margin. Margins really matter in these dual races."

"That's why it makes every other race so important," sophomore Chelsea Quilling said. 
While the varsity boat finished the race in 7 minutes 11 seconds, short of its goal to break the 7-minute mark, the race provided the team with a benchmark of where its at and what it can improve upon. 

"We are looking to get faster," Quilling said. "For our boat it was a learning experience to find out we do have speed and we have it in us to pull together and beat some really good schools. I think we could've been more composed in our sprint [last 500 meters]."

The junior varsity boat also said the race was telling of where their boat is at right now.

"It was a really good starting off point because now we know what to do to improve for the rest of the race," Welly said. "It was a really good jumping off point."

The teams hope to focus on rowing hard in tough races, especially in the third 500 of the 2,000-meter race.

"Staying scrappy is very important," said junior Jamie Hemenway, who is on the Varsity 4+ boat. "If a boat passes you, you have to stick with them."

Hemenway and Welly describe this year's squad as a mixture of "diva princesses and weirdoes."

"Rowing attracts insane people," Welly said. "We wake up at 4:30 every morning. It takes a special person to commit to that every day. Rowing takes a unique person that wants to win or wants to be fast."

Next up the Zags head to Ithaca, N.Y. over Easter Break for a regatta that features rowing powerhouses Yale, Cornell, Michigan State, Syracuse, and Buffalo. The Zags will race MSU, who is ranked No. 6 in the nation, Buffalo and Syracuse over two days. The Zags hope to perform well against these schools, many who consistently attend the NCAA championships, in order to boost their resume to get an at large bid to the NCAA's, Welly said.

"We have to make sure that during each race we remember our margins and how they can affect our bid to NCAA's," Quilling said. "We want to make it a race to the thousand and then hold them off. We want to make it an internal race because we don't know fast they're going to be."