Boston, Mass. — The Wisconsin men's rowing team opened the fall season at the 54th annual Head of the Charles regatta on a gusty Charles River in Boston Sunday.

Windy conditions made for a choppy race on the Charles River, but for the first time in several years, no boats suffered penalties or collisions.  

Wisconsin's championship eight finished 18th out of 32 entries with a time of 15:45.824, while the Badgers' championship four placed 13th among 19 entries, crossing the finish line in 18 minutes and 37 seconds.

Boats from the U.S. Rowing program, Yale and Brown made up the top three boats in the championship eight, with the U.S. boat taking home the crown with a time of 14:49.616. A boat from the Royal Dutch Rowing Federation won the championship four race, clocking in with a time of 17 minutes, 10 seconds.

Up Next: The Badgers have a week of practice before heading to Princeton, New Jersey to compete in the annual Princeton Chase next Sunday, Oct. 28.

Straight from the Lake
Head Coach Chris Clark:
On today's races:
"It was really windy and gusty, so we had some serious headwind action. My initial response is that it was remarkable in its unremarkableness. There was nothing unusual about today for the first time in years. Neither boat had any of an upset or a penalty, or hit anything or crashed into anybody. It was just completely normal. Literally in six or seven years, at least one of the boats has had some sort of a misadventure. Nothing this year. I'm very pleased with that."

"Both boats looked perfectly fine. Lake Mendota has been high and it's really affected our operations. We've rowed probably 25 percent less at this point than usual or even more, so I'm actually pretty pleased with the performances. We looked like what we should look like right now."

"In the eight specifically, just a brilliant coxing job by Kaz (Kishiue-Koval). He did exactly what I told him to do and he played it perfectly and got everything he could out of it. Our guys looked just fine. At least six of the crews ahead of us are national teams, but there may have been more. I think we were 11th amongst the colleges. We put behind us some front-line programs as well so that was exciting, but Kaz just did a great job. He looked like he had done it before."

"I want to say out of the 14 guys here, three maybe have ever been to the Head of the Charles, so it was a raw group. Overall, it was good start. A real good start. I know it sounds silly that all we're concerned about is misadventures but it happens and it's happened so much the last five or six years that you kind of come to expect it. It's sure nice to get back to normal and not have anything like that."

"Next week we have the Princeton Chase. I don't know how the water will be this week. Again, we're affected by this high water, but we should able to do a little more racing and be a little more ready to compete, if nothing else because we got a race under our belt. The guys had a great time and it was a good start. The year has begun."  

Head of the Charles
Oct. 21, 2018
Boston, Mass.
Charles River
3 miles

MEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP EIGHT  (32 entries)
1. USRowing, 14:49.616; 2. Yale, 14:52.556; 3. Brown, 15:07.230; 4. KNRB, 15:08.042; 5. Harvard, 15:11.562; 6. KNRB, 15:13.396; 7. USRowing 'B', 15:13.804; 8. California, 15:15.338 ; 9. Washington, 15:15.800; 10. Northeastern, 15:17.464; 11. Boston University, 5:19.730 ; 12. DRV Dortmund, 15:22.710; 13. Northeastern 'B', 15:23.602; 14. Unaffiliated, 15:31.384; 15. Boston University 'B', 15:35.604; 16. Harvard 'B', 15:39.606; 17. Yale 'B', 15:40.778; 18. Wisconsin, 15:45.824; 19. Dartmouth, 15:49.398; 20. Cornell, 15:47.748; 21. Princeton 'B', 15:59.792 ; 22. DRV Dortmund 'B', 16:05.204; 23. Penn, 16:06.004; 24. Aviron Grenoblois, 16:10.246; 25. Northeastern 'C', 16:10.400; 26. Bonner RG, 16:13.796; 27. Penn 'B', 16:27.560; 28. NCU Torun, 16:29.212; 29. Georgetown, 16:29.636; 30. Princeton, 16:34.472; 31. Colgate, 16:44.744; 32. Tideway Scullers, 17:21.514

UW Lineup: Coxswain Kaz Kishiue-Koval, Dylan Adams, William Alt, Adam Wehking, Kurt Mueller, Kyle McCarthy, Jacob Wenner, Philipp Bogdanov, Tyler Stevens.

MEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP FOUR (19 entries)
1. KNRB, 17:10.194; 2. USRowing, 17:18.050; 3. Brown, 17:25.418; 4. Camp Randall, 17:43.070; 5. Dartmouth, 17:47.672; 6. FIT, 17:52.930; 7. Oregon State, 17:58.316; 8. Naval Academy, 18:10.694; 9. George Washington, 18:11.382; 10. Favorite, 18:11.462; 11. Princeton, 18:12.516; 12. New York AC, 18:17.708; 13. Wisconsin, 18:37.366; 14. Penn, 18:51.740; 15. Bonner RG, 18:53.376; 16. California, 18:55.824; 17. Rhodes, 18:58.860; 18. Guelph, 19:35.824; 19. Boston University, DNS

UW Lineup: Coxswain Cameron Pak, Nathan Petersen, Evan Miller, Benjamin Waller, Tim Zogleman