Crew continues the championship chase

The varsity rowing squads get back into action for the brand new crew season

By Tim Cable /// Staff Writer

Both the men’s and women’s Lewis & Clark Crew teams competed this weekend at the Husky Open, on the famous Montlake Cut at the University of Washington’s campus. Led by the women’s varsity four team, which took a first place finish out of Seattle, the Pioneers found a lot of promising successes at the Husky Open. The Pios continued their successful spring with more strong performances on the Cut.

The women’s varsity four defeated Washington State University, a Division I school, by nearly four seconds to take the win. The win marks second of the spring for the women’s varsity four, who also took the event at the Hagg Lake Invite on March 19. The Pios finished with a time of 8:16.348, followed by WSU at 8:21.529. Puget Sound finished with a mark of 8:51.620.

The men’s varsity eight was stacked up against some incredibly tough competition, including the likes of DI UW and DII Western Oregon University, as well as a frequent DIII opponent, the Northwest Conference’s University of Puget Sound. The Pios took fourth place against the stacked field, finishing with a time of 6:47.787.

The women’s varsity eight also faced a diverse and loaded field of challengers, competing against UW and Seattle University, another DI team. The Pios took third place at the event, behind those two teams but ahead of Puget Sound.

Regattas such as the Husky Open provide a competition that is unique to the sport of rowing, as Luc Cohen-Wanis ’18 from the men’s team explained. These regattas allow schools like LC to compete against DI varsity programs such as UW or WSU. These DI teams are able to recruit and offer full athletic scholarships, while LC and similar schools, such as Puget Sound, do not provide athletic scholarships for rowing. Thus, the chance for the Pios to compete against large schools is an outstanding opportunity that other sports in the athletic program simply do not provide. DIII schools have never competed against DI schools in other sports like football or basketball. The men’s crew team is also a club sport, which makes the chance to compete against top competition even more enticing to their rowers.

The Pios will continue their competition this weekend at the Logger Invitational at American Lake, Washington. This weekend marks one of three remaining regattas (among which is the NWC Championship at Vancouver Lake, Washington on April 24), as the Pios push toward a strong finish.