Early success lends to optimism

Most second novice eights aren't considered fast. In fact, most second novice eights generally are made up of the rowers that aren't quite good enough to be in the first novice eight. The Hoosiers' second novice eight, however, is not your typical squad.\nIn its first race of the season, the second novice eight took on traditional rowing powerhouses Notre Dame and Purdue. The Hoosiers stepped up and took first place with a time of 6:47, beating Purdue by six seconds and Notre Dame by eight.\nThe following weekend, the team traveled to Dayton, Ohio, to take on Cincinnati and Dayton. The race was originally scheduled to be 2,000 meters long with a dead start, but because of bad weather, it was changed to a series of three 1,000 meter races from a floating start. The second novice eight was the only Hoosier crew to win all three of its races.\nNovice coach Angela Leone said she expects to see more good things from the second novice eight for the rest of the season.\n"I see them picking up speed from here," Leone said. "In two weeks, we will see Michigan and Michigan State, who are both good crews, and that will be a true test. I see their streak continuing."\nAs for its early season success, the team said it believes good chemistry has helped.\n"We have equal strength, we work really well together," sophomore Jamy Stech said. "We're good at following each other in the water. We get along off the water as well."\nFreshman Casey Fein said she agrees.\n"All the girls just have fun together," she said. "We mesh really well together. We go out to dinner; we all made T-shirts for spring break."\nLeone, however, said she disagrees with the team. She said she thinks the motivating factor for them is to be in the first novice eight.\n"None of those girls want to be in that boat," Leone said. "They want to be in the first eight. They do get along well, but not better than the team as a whole."\nMost second novice eights come into the season with moderate expectations, and IU's boat is no different. Coming into this season, the team's main goals were to row well and to try and win some races. Freshman coxswain Maria Hernandez said the team has the same goals for every race.\n"We hoped we would do well," she said. "We try to our best in every race. We really couldn't judge ourselves until now."\nStech agrees and said the team's hard work in the off-season has paid off.\n"We wanted to win but we didn't expect to do this well," she said. "It's nice to see all the hard work in the winter wasn't for nothing."\nThe novice team has a weekend off before they head to East Lansing to take on Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State.