Hoosiers sweep 3 teams en route to regatta title

The IU rowing team dominated Cincinnati, Dayton and Eastern Michigan on Saturday at Harsha Lake in Cincinnati. All boats beat the other crews by considerable margins.\n“We expected to win but I don’t think we expected to win by as much as we did,” said sophomore Jamie Spoto. “The boats just rowed a really solid race.” \nThe Hoosiers raced their first varsity, second varsity and novice eights, and two varsity fours, each crossing the line with open water on the other teams. After a week of lineup adjustments and intrasquad competitions for a seat on the first varsity boat, the team as a whole had its best performance of the season to date.\n“There were three of us that moved from the second to the first eight,” junior Kiri Crane said. “Knowing that this was our shot, we wanted to prove it was a good decision to put us there.”\nThe first and second novice eights got to race for the first time since their spring break training trip. Both IU boats raced in the same event against the other schools, with IU’s first novice eight coming in first despite encountering difficulties with steering the course.\n“We’ve never had a nonbuoyed racecourse and we didn’t take the straightest race possible so we lost some time with that but we ended up neck and neck with Cincinnati around the 1,000-meter mark,” freshman Monica Idstein said. “With 500 meters left we really pulled away from them and won by almost a boat-length.” \nThe Hoosiers’ first varsity eight started fast off the line and continued to create space between their boat and the other teams’ even after they caught the lead. By halfway through the race they had put away the competition and were essentially racing against the clock. \n“When you’re up by that much, it’s tough not to just settle in and sit, but we kept the race going and kept getting farther ahead,” Spoto said. “Our coxswain was yelling at us as if Wisconsin was next to us, pushing us to go faster as if they were right there.”\nLast week the Hoosiers fell to Wisconsin but will have a chance at a rematch this coming weekend in Indianapolis. IU will also face off against Notre Dame this weekend, who are anticipated to be a good crew as well. \n“The win was a good confidence boost going into this coming week because we will be facing our real competition,” Crane said. “We’ve said OK, now that we’ve gotten this race in let’s work harder for next weekend. It’s time to focus on the people who are a lot faster than us.”