UW women's rowing coach Bebe Bryans spoke on Monday to discuss the upcoming Big Ten rowing championships, which will be held on Lake Wingra in Madison this Saturday.
This will be the first time the Badgers will host the event since the inaugural competition seven years ago.
""It's come full circle,"" Bryans said. ""We're looking forward to starting this next round really positively with a great event.""
Wisconsin has only raced once this season before this championship, at the Midwest championships, which were also held in Lake Wingra.
""This is an extraordinary team that I'm really proud of top to bottom. They're pretty young. We've got a great group of seniors. I think there's 13 of them, but half of the varsity open weight squad are sophomores,"" Bryans said. ""A lot of those women are in our upper boats, so they're having to really learn on the fly and take every practice as if it's a racing situation. We're trying hard to set them up for that.""
Bryans is entering her third season at Wisconsin and last season, her openweights placed eighth at the NCAA championships. The novices took last year's Big Ten title. Despite a strong field, including her former team Michigan State, Bryans is confident about UW's chances this weekend.
""Realistically, I think we can win,"" Bryans said. ""We're going out to win. We're going out to win every race whether that happens or not. That's why we raced on Saturday—to find that out. I have absolute confidence in the fact that every one of our boats is going to go out, and they are going to execute really well ... everybody's excited abut the opportunity to do that.""
This team has many young rowers, including former Big Ten Freshman of the Year Sarah Wrenshall.
After this weekend, the Badgers will go on to the NCAA regionals but the coaches are not looking past Saturday.
""We're just ready to come out and go, you know, blazes on Saturday ... we talked a lot about toughness, and toughness to us is to bring your best to any competitive situation,"" Bryans said. ""Your best, whatever that may be in whatever situation you're up against. And I think this team has made huge strides in that area. That's what we've been focusing on. So it could be a detriment, but I think it's going to work in our favor.""
