Marquette’s rowing team attended The Dad Vail regatta this weekend out in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is the largest intercollegiate regatta in the country with over 100 universities in attendance. The team got to see some similar faces from earlier this spring season, such as Grand Valley, Northwestern, and MSOE. The Dad Vail Regatta lasts two days with 175 races taking place. The MU squads where able to leave Milwaukee on Wednesday by bus in order to make it for a practice run on the course Thursday afternoon.
Friday morning came around and the team was on the water racing bright and early at 8:30 with the Varsity Women's 8+. They raced well and took third in their heat advancing to the repechages later in the day. In the reps, they placed first in their heat with a time of 7:30.786, winning their way into semifinals. A couple hours later, the Noviec Women's 4+ started their race and posted a time of 9:18.164. Following them came the Men's Lightweight 4+, racing against our cross town rivals MSOE and some of the fastest teams at the regatta, and posting a time of 7:46.754. After them came the Novice Women's 8+, who placed third in their heat and advanced to the semi-finals on Saturday. The next race was the Men's Varsity 4+ time trial. This was the largest field of the day and our boys finished 22nd, just 8 seconds from advancing. To close out the day, the Varsity Women's 4+ took to the course for their time trial and put up a time of 8:11.
Saturday morning the team arrived early at the course for the Varsity Women's 8+ semi-final. They placed 6th in there heat which had the fastest average times of the four semifinals heats. They put up their best time of the weekend with a 7:09.608. Later in the Day the Novice Women took to the course for their semifinals race. They raced hard and put up a time of 7:52.233, finishing 11th in the event overall. This was the first time in several years that Marquette has had two teams advance to race Saturday and is a testament to our club's improvement. Thank you to all the parents and alumni that came out in support of the team. We will close out the season at the ACRA National Championship two weeks from now in Georgia. Hope to see you there!