Last weekend, Villanova’s women’s rowing team competed at the New York Rowing Association Invitational in Ridgefield, NJ, where each of its boats placed third in their respective finals.
Starting Sunday off strong was the Wildcats’ V8 team, which competed against UConn and Fairfield. The V8 team (composed of graduate student Kara Dempsey, seniors Madison Girard, Anna Flynn and Jayden Ramos, juniors Kira Capaldi and Isabella Thorne and sophomores Maggie Coyne and Sarah Robillard) pulled three seconds ahead of both teams, winning their heat with a time of 6:57.511 to move on to the 1V A Final.
The Wildcats’ 2V8 team was composed of seniors Julia Kreisl and Caroline Colgan, junior Grace Quirk, sophomores Cate Donnelly and Sabrina Pauli and freshmen Hannah Jenkins, Maken- na Davis, Silvana Torres and Sage Santora.
“I think [the freshmen] are an athletic group,” head coach Carissa Adams said. “They have never rowed before, so they are really doing a good job of picking up the stroke. We have tried to slow down the practices a little bit to work more on technique since Head of the Schuylkill. I think they’re doing a great job, and it will be exciting to see how they do against Bucknell’s novice crews.”
Villanova’s 2V8 boat’s morning did not start off as successful as the other Wildcat team, after it finished second to UConn in the first heat with a time of 7:18.048.
“I thought they did really well,” Adams said. “I was really proud of their efforts. The start of the day exceeded our expectations, and both boats had solid races. The V8 got out ahead, and they were able to keep that lead. The 2V8 was actually in third place for most of the heat, and in the last 500 meters, they were able to pull through Fairfield.”
The V8 team for the Wildcats faced tough competition in the finals against Marist and Holy Cross, with the Crusaders finishing four seconds ahead of both teams.
In the race for second place, the Red Foxes beat out the Wildcats by one second, leaving them with a final time of 7:24.704. In the 2V8 finals and second heat of the day, the second Wildcat boat fell behind the Huskies and Crusaders again, finishing with a time of 7:44.649.
“For the second race, I’m proud of the results of the day, but I think that we didn’t handle the dual race format very well as a squad,” Adams said. “It gives us an area to focus on for improvement for the spring. It’s a matter of having a mindset shift about having two races in one day and making sure we go out and have consistent performances in both races.”
Next weekend, Villanova will travel to Lewisburg, PA to compete in the Bucknell Invite on Saturday, Nov. 11 for its last competition of the fall schedule.
“I think that we need to make sure that we have the right people in the right places in terms of the V8 and the 2V8,” Adams said. “We are going to be rowing a novice eight as well so we will be taking three squads. I want to go out and have a solid performance that’s similar to the performance we saw in our heats over this past weekend. There could potentially be a few shifts in our lineups and personnel as well. We are going to do some seat racing this week to determine if we want to make any shifts.”
