Alex Wagner
Assistant Sports Editor
The women’s rowing team picked up its first-ever regular season lightweight eight win over Princeton in the Bison’s only home event of the year last Saturday. The Bison varsity eight also won against Drexel.
The lightweight eight boat for the Orange and Blue is rowed by Caitlin Vogelsang ’12, Hannah Rozowski-Vogt ’12, Helena Craig ’15, Hilary Strong ’12, Anne Kirk ’12, Elizabeth Aigler ’13, Victoria Catharine ’14 and Jennifer Fish ’14, with Alexandra Higbee ’12 as coxswain.
They rowed to a 7:15.98 finish, more than three seconds ahead of Princeton. The victory did not come easily.
“It was a tough race, especially with Princeton closing our lead within the second half,” Vogelsang said. “Mentally and physically pushing through that was the key to ultimately pulling back out ahead.”
The day’s events also marked the first time the Bison have raced an Ivy League school at their home course.
The Bison’s openweight freshman eight raced against Princeton’s freshman lightweight eight and finished in 8:01.55, almost nine seconds ahead of their competitors. After only a short break, the same rowers lost to Drexel’s freshman eight.
In the second race after the break, the Bison’s second and third varsity eights competed against Drexel’s second varsity eight, finishing first and third respectively, with Drexel in second.
The day’s races finished up with the Orange and Blue varsity eight defeating Drexel’s varsity eight by almost 14 seconds.
Head coach Stephen Kish was pleased with his team’s performance.
“It was an exciting day for the team. Drexel University has a great rowing program and our boats did a great job putting together a strong race and defending our home course. The Princeton lightweights finished second at the national championship last year, so finishing ahead of them definitely felt good and showed us that we can be competitive at the top level,” Kish said.
The next action for the Bison will be this weekend at the Knecht Cup on the Cooper River in Cherry Hill, N.J.