The Cornell rowing teams will have one last opportunity to work out the kinks of the fall season this Saturday at Syracuse, before beginning a five-month training season. Both the men’s heavyweight and lightweight squads and the women’s team will make the short journey to the Syracuse Invitational this weekend, looking to finish a solid fall season with one last strong performance.

The Syracuse Invitational tends to be a smaller race, consisting of just a few Northeast schools; including Colgate and host Syracuse. The race spans three miles and is made up of a series of fours events, which are divided on the basis of gender but not weight; meaning that Cornell’s heavyweight and lightweight teams will be racing against each other this Saturday.

Back to basics: After this weekend’s invite, Crew will enter a five month training season preparing for the Spring regattas.

The fall season tends to be more focused on discovering a team’s potential and speed rather than results, but, with spring looming ever closer, a win in Syracuse would go a long way for any of the Red’s rowing teams.

“The emphasis this weekend is to just nail one more race,” junior lightweight coxswain Kerry Quinn said. “Just to get some momentum for the winter training coming up.”

According to Quinn’s head coach Chris Kerber, the key to this weeks event will be in the preparation his team puts forth in the days leading up to the race.

“Prepare, prepare, prepare,” Kerber said, clearly emphasizing the importance that practice would play in the results this weekend.

Kerber’s team will find itself matched up against several heavyweight opponents this weekend, so preparation will be a necessity in order to keep up with the competition.

“We race as weight restricted opponents, so it is always going to be tight,” Kerber said.

As the women’s team gets ready for this weekend’s race in Syracuse, the emphasis will be placed more on technique than anything else. According to coach Hilary Gehman, it is nearly just as important to see how the Red crews race against each other than against the competition.

“We’re going to focus a lot on technique,” Gehman said. “We want to see how we match up against each other, as well as against everyone else.”

The women’s rowing team has shown a lot of potential throughout the fall season, including strong performances from a solid freshman class.

“It’s a pretty long year,” Gehman said. “We’re ultimately looking at our spring season to determine our speed against the competition.”

Although the Cornell rowing teams’ ultimate success may not be determined until the spring season, this weekend’s race in Syracuse is a step along the path to a strong Spring.

“[The Syracuse Invitational] is kind of a good thing to do to top off the fall,” Quinn said. “We get to test different line-ups, so it’s a good event for the coaches too. It really can set a tone for our winter training season.”