This weekends racing was full of challenges: the truck broke down on the side of the road-sub freezing racing temps-strong headwinds-tough racing. The end result was all challenges were met full on and we are better prepared to succeed as we move towards the heart of our racing schedule in April.
Racing up against Cornell Ltwts was excellent. Matching up against such a good program showed we have excellent speed and we still have work to do to put together a complete 2000m race. The racing showed us that are strengths are indeed very strong and Cornell exposed some weaknesses that we can learn from and adapt to which in the end is a great positive. The Big Red were excellent sportsmen and this annual opener has proven to be very useful to both programs.
The scrimmage was run by coaches from the water so times were a little tough to collect accurately traveling behind the crews as officials. The Freshman 8 defeated the Cornell 2F easily – the Cornell 3V and Bucknell 2V raced almost level to 900m before Cornell started to move away in the 2nd 1000m. Cornell ended up winning easily while the 2V learned some valuable lessons and identified some tactical points they could adjust to help them vs. Ithaca. In the 1V race Bucknell led by 3-4 seats to the 1000m and as the crews moved through the turns in the course and directly into the head-wind the boats came level. Similar to the 2V the 1V failed to keep executing at a high level as they moved into the wind and the 3rd 500. Cornell started to move out and finished about 2.5 lengths in front of the Bison varsity.
In the second race of the day about 30-45minutes after the Cornell races was our race against ECAC rival Ithaca College. The great thing about racing again so quickly was our ability to immediately go back to work with the lessons learned against Cornell very fresh and focused in our minds. We executed at a very high level and did not make the same errors twice. All the crews won easily with very significant margins of victory (10-20 seconds). It was a very positive end to the day for the Bison and the coaches decided that the crew of the day was our freshman 8 after going 2-0 on the day! Well done to all our guys and thank you very much to the parents who came and supported us through the whole day!
Video’s of the racing will be posted shortly on the Bucknell Crew Association facebook fan page.
Follow BucknellCrew on Twitter for race day results and reports.
The Varsity will race next at the San Diego Crew Classic on April 2-3 while the rest of the team races in New Brunswick vs. Rutgers and Delaware on April 2.
Go Bison!
Paul Bugenhagen
Head Coach Men’s Crew