The Wisconsin women's rowing team earned a pair of impressive third place finishes at the San Diego Crew Classic over the weekend for both the varsity eight and second varsity eight teams.
The teams opened the meet with races on Saturday morning with the hopes of qualifying for the finals on Sunday.
The varsity eight team, ranked at No. 15, finished their heat in second place, less than two seconds behind Southern California. The run qualified the Badgers for the finals, as they needed to finish in the top three out of the five teams competing.
Wisconsin's second varsity team qualified for their finals, taking the victory in their heat on Saturday. They beat all five of their opponents, including Oregon State, whom the Badgers held off by less than two seconds.
After safely qualifying for their respective finals, both Wisconsin teams were prepared for another set of solid races Sunday, and fulfilled that potential.
The varsity eight finished third in their final, falling short to only No. 6 Michigan and fourth-ranked Washington. The Badgers, who finished with a time of 6:47.24, got the best of USC this time around, holding off the fourth-place Trojans by a little more than a second.
The second varsity eight boat also finished their final in third place. The team came in with a time of 7:04.71, also finishing behind Washington and Michigan.
Head coach Bebe Bryans said she was satisfied with how the team performed in its west coast meet. She said the team's goal was to come out and execute the game plan better than they had and run an efficient race, and those goals were met in San Diego over the weekend.
Wisconsin faced some very competitive opponents at the meet, including many west coast opponents who have had the advantage of getting much more water time through this point of the season. Bryans was pleased with how her team was able to perform well and hold its own against this competition.
""There were a lot of west coast teams that we won't see again until the national championships, and I think we fared very well against most of them,"" Bryans said. ""We were very competitive with all of them.""
She also felt that there was definite improvement in the team's performance from Saturday to Sunday.
""It's a big race, there's a lot going on, there are a lot of stimulus and a lot of distractions,"" Bryans said. ""They were able to perform well on Saturday, but I think they were a lot happier with their performance on Sunday just because they were able to focus better.""
Given the impressive showing from Big Ten opponent Michigan, Bryans expects a very competitive conference this year. She added that Michigan State, Minnesota, Iowa and Ohio State all had very good teams this season.
""All of them have been to the national championships many times and are always competitive,"" she said. ""It's going to be good.""
The Badgers will have another opportunity to compete against Michigan this upcoming weekend when they race against the Wolverines and Michigan State in Ann Arbor on Saturday, April 11.
