By TUCKER MAGGIO-HUCEK
The Cornell Women’s Rowing Team finished up their fall season on Saturday in a competition against Syracuse and the University of Buffalo. The Red made the trip an hour north looking to test its speed in the last competitive race for a few months. In all five races held, the hosts, Syracuse, finished first, the Red second and the Bulls last.
In each race, the three teams rowed a 1,500-meter course three times, and the total time between the three races determined the winner. Senior captain Elyce Buell said this competition was groundwork for the future. “In the spring it will be all 2,000-meter races,” she said, “So this was good preparation for the spring style races.”
In the varsity eight’s first trial, the Red finished the course six seconds behind the Orange and significantly ahead of Bulls. The second time around, the hosts managed to pull seven seconds ahead of the Red, and in the final leg, they completed the course 11 seconds faster than Cornell. Overall, the Red was 25 seconds slower than Syracuse and close to 90 seconds faster than Buffalo.
“Not a super close race but one that can definitely be overcome with hard and focused training this winter,” Buell said.
The varsity eight race was the closest that the Red would come to catching the host boats. In the second varsity race, the Red fell behind right away and were unable to regain the ground that was lost. In the varsity four race, the Red were able to come within 10 seconds of Syracuse in the second heat, but fell even further behind in the third heat.
The Red will now begin its winter training as it prepares for the upcoming Spring season. Cornell’s next race will be in March, when they take on Syracuse again.
“In just a couple of months we will be having a very similar race with Syracuse and UB, and we can’t wait to see how we match up after training hard during the winter,” Buell said.