The women’s rowing team entered the weekend ranked No. 19 –– a ranking that may slip after the team’s third-place finish in the Dunn Bowl races. The Red hosted Columbia and No. 5 Brown on Saturday at the Cayuga Lake Inlet.Cornell finished third behind Columbia’s second- and Brown’s 18th straight first-place finish in the Dunn Bowl race. Although the team finished third, the 7.56 second difference between the respective finishes was actually the closest the Red has come to beating Brown since 1997. Additionally, all was not lost as the varsity four teams rowed well. Cornell finished first in the varsity four B race and the varsity four team finished second behind Brown. That said, the Red squad was still surprised that it performed below expectations over the weekend.“It was definitely a tough loss for us. The first and second varsity teams lost by close margins, and it was a bit of a shock that Columbia beat us by one second,” said senior captain Harlan Trevithick.Perhaps the reason both teams stepped up was to prove themselves against a tougher Cornell team.“We were disappointed this weekend. I think we entered this weekend with targets on our back. Columbia came after us and surprised us,” said sophomore Niki Tsamis.The rowers agree that no specific problem hindered them, but there are always things that the team needs to work on.“There wasn’t one thing that stood out as a red flag to fix. Our aggression and intensity were there,” Trevithick said.Now, the team is making an effort to find its best lineups in the boats so that it can improve its times.“We need to switch our lineups to find the fastest combinations, which is what Brown and Columbia did against us. To prepare for this, every morning we’re working in pairs to figure out the faster combinations,” Trevithick said.After such a tough and close loss, the team is looking to regroup and use these faster lineups against Dartmouth during the upcoming weekend. A win against the fourth-ranked Green will allow Cornell to shoot up the rankings again.“We want to put this weekend behind us and look ahead to next weekend. This time, Dartmouth will have a target on their backs and we’ll look to go after them,” Tsamis said.“We’re really excited for this weekend. We’re not the team to take this weekend’s loss too seriously and we’ll stay positive and proactive to go into the next week. We want to face the best opponents to prove that we are fast and that we’re ready to race the top crews,” Trevithick said.Saturday marked the end of the unbelievable undefeated streak the third varsity team had. For five races, the team finished in first place until the loss to Columbia and Brown. However, this is not a deterring factor for the Red.“Even though the third varsity team lost, they really fought during their race. I think it will light a fire under them for the upcoming races and they’ll want to win even more,” Tsamis said.
Original Author: Wankyu Lee