After long winter, Wildcats place third in San Diego

The K-State rowing team has been training on the water for a little less than a month. In that short amount of time, the Wildcats have made strides resulting in the top boat, which earned them third place in the SeaWorld Cal Cup at the San Diego Crew Classic.

"The 1st Varsity posted the fastest time of the three heats, beating the Stanford lightweights who were national champions last year," said head coach Patrick Sweeney in a kstatesports.com press release. "With Tulsa and Alabama winning their respective heats in similar times, it was evident that the last race would come down to a narrow margin."

With their victory in the preliminary heats on Saturday, the Wildcats earned a spot in Sunday's Grand Final. In their final race of the event, they finished in third, 2.49 seconds behind first-place Alabama. Tulsa took second place in the SeaWorld Cal Cup just ahead of the Wildcats. Despite not winning the event, Sweeney said the crew made strides.

"It is obvious that all the boats have increased in speed over the last two weeks since racing in Texas," Sweeney said in the release.

The Wildcats came close to having two of the three boats qualify for the Grand Final. The Novice 8 boat was edged out by Stanford in the last 200 meters of their preliminary heat, preventing them from moving on to the Grand Final of the Laurel V. Korholz Perpetual Trophy. On Sunday, the freshman crew went on to win the Petite Final over Southern California by nearly 2.5 seconds.

The 2nd Varsity 8 crew raced twice on Saturday, finishing fifth in their preliminary heat and placing second in the C Final of the Jackie Ann Stitt Hungness Trophy. According to the press release, Sweeney was impressed with how the boat raced, but indicated that he might make some seat adjustments to make the boat more competitive.

One of Sweeney's goals going into the event was to increase the number of strokes taken by a boat per minute. The team was able to make improvements over its performance at the Longhorn Invitational two weeks ago.

The biggest obstacle the rowers have had to overcome since starting their spring season was the fact that they had far less training time on the water. Many teams live in warm-weather climates and are able to work on their technique year-round. The Wildcats are constricted to land training all winter, and were even forced on land for a few days last week because there was snow on the ground.

"In all my years of coaching here, there's never been snow after spring break," Sweeney said.

Following their impressive performance in San Diego, the rowing squad has two weeks off competition before heading to the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association event in Oak Ridge, Tenn., a two-day event that begins April 16.