MADISON, Wis—The No. 12 Wisconsin men's crew has had an exciting season. With a second-year coach, new team and new experiences, the Badgers have shown steady growth over the past six months.
At the end of last season, the Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association (IRCA) Men's Heavyweight Varsity 8+ poll ranked the University of Wisconsin at No.18. The Badgers kicked off their season at the Head of the Charles regatta in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Head of the Charles is the world's largest multi-day rowing event, founded in 1965. The varsity eight finished 26th out of 30 entries.
The team continued their fall season at the Princeton Chase and Bald Eagle Invite. The crew split up to participate in the two regattas. At the Bald Eagle Invite in Indianapolis, the Men's freshman eight fell into the middle of the pack, placing third against other Big Ten schools like Minnesota Purdue, and Michigan. The varsity placed last.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, for the Princeton Chase, the men's crew finished eighth, 16th and 38th in the morning sessions. For the second round of races, with entries reduced from 41 to 23, the men's varsity eight surged to second place, trailing just seconds behind Princeton A. Head coach
Beau Hoopman said "They're learning fast, just need to catch up to the competition. We have about three weeks left on the water, and the goal is to break 600 miles for the fall. We're at about 465 right now."
In a preseason poll taken by IRCA, Wisconsin was ranked No.17. They opened the spring season at the end of March for the Marietta College Invite. All four of the boats brought to Ohio clinched a first-place finish.
Beau said, "We need that race as a wake-up to the spring season. We haven't been on the water for more than three times since winter training in Austin, so that's a bit of a shock to the system. We will look to use this experience to catapult us into spring break training where we're going to shoot for 100 miles in five days."
The victories in Marietta brought the crew some confidence. At the Stanford/Cal Invite on April 5 and 6, the Badgers triumphed over Oregon State during the varsity eight and second varsity eight races.
"It's there, we just need the guys to step up to that next level; especially the freshmen," Hoopman said. " We were pretty underrepresented in that class just because of the lack of experience. They should make some jumps in speed in the next three weeks and hopefully we can get them that experience. All in all a good weekend against some really good competition."
The crew's success pushed the Badgers up to No.13 in the IRCA poll.
Two weeks later on, April 26 and 27, Wisconsin took back the Jablonic Cup from Boston University for the first time since 2012. The crew traveled to Fairlee, Vermont, to compete against BU, Dartmouth and Georgetown. The varsity eight finished the 2000-meter course in 5:44.8. The following day, Wisconsin rowed past Georgetown, winning the varsity eight and second varsity eight races.
The crew still has one more regular season regatta before the IRA National Championships at the end of May. On May 18, the Badgers will travel to Worcester, Massachusetts to compete in the Eastern Sprints.
Stay tuned on UWBadgers.com for more information on the Wisconsin men's rowing team and their journey.
