Men's rowing begins bid for 10th national title
June 04, 2009 | Men's Rowing
There are lots of changes this year for the 2009 Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships as for the first time in 15 years, the event will not take place on the Cooper River in Camden, N.J. This year, Lake Natoma in Gold River, Calif., will be the site of the 107th IRAs, beating Marietta, Ohio as the western-most site for the annual event.
In addition to the location change, teams qualified and were selected for this year 's IRA. Prior to this season, boats just entered, and club teams were welcome to race alongside. That is no longer part of the equation.
The one thing the Badgers hope doesn't change is the success of its varsity eight. Last year, Wisconsin capped off an undefeated season with a victory over No. 1 Washington for the school's eighth Varsity Challenge Cup as IRA varsity eight champion and the school's ninth national championship in the boat, overall.
Wisconsin has six of its eight rowers back from that crew, but after sailing relatively smoothly through much of 2009, a key injury to one of its returning rowers helped in the UW 's first spring loss in nearly two years when the Badgers placed third at the 2009 Eastern Sprints. The Badgers hope that during the month following that race, the boat has returned to speed and is ready for another national championship run.
The 2009 racing season has been wide open around the sport. While California has spent much of the season at the top-ranked crew, they have split races with Washington. Wisconsin owns victories over Stanford and Washington, but also has losses to Brown and Harvard at the aforementioned Eastern Sprints. After a victory at Eastern Sprints, Brown subsequently fell to Boston University, a boat the Badgers beat twice. It is anybody's race.
The Badgers' probable lineup for the varsity eight looks to include coxswain Anthony Altimari, stroke and Sun Prairie, Wis., native Max Goff, twins Grant and Ross James, George Walters, Zach Krupp, Ed Newman, Paul Williams and Ryan Fox.
The Wisconsin second varsity eight is also expecting a strong performance as one of six seeded crews. The UW second varsity eight placed second behind Brown at Eastern Sprints and will see many of the same crews at IRAs.
Coxswain Dan Connolly will lead the crew, with Peter Helfer, Will Porter, Dan Stevens, Zach Rodenbough, Steve Dudek, Matt Lojkovic, Roger Huffman and Eric Duhon making up the eight rowers in the boat.
The freshmen eight figures to be a battle for second place as Washington has dominated the competition all season, but the Badgers do enter as the No. 6 seed.
The Badgers will also have entries in the varsity four and open four events as the UW hopes to be in the mix for the all-around team title. The winner takes home the Ten Eyck Trophy, an honor the Badgers have taken home 14 times before, more than any other school.
Follow along with all the racing beginning Thursday morning at jamcotimes.com .Racing gets underway at 10 a.m. CT.
You can also watch at the live Web cast .
