Rowing season starts with photo finish

It was anything but a boring start to the season for the IU rowing team Saturday at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.

Competing against home team and favorite No. 16 Clemson, the Hoosiers managed to tie the Tigers for first place in the 1st Varsity 8 race with a time of 6:46.21 in a finish that had to go to video review to conclude that it was a dead heat finish.

But IU Coach Steve Peterson said he expected the Hoosiers to win the race with the way they rowed.

“Obviously we were disappointed to not walk away with the win from the Varsity 8 race,” Peterson said. “The crew did a fantastic job through the first 1,500 meters of the race and was solidly in a position to win the race over several very fast crews.”

After the first 500 meters, the Hoosiers and Tigers went ahead of the rest of the pack, which included Big Ten foes Purdue and Iowa, as well as Syracuse and Boston.
In the next 500, the Hoosiers opened up a three-second lead against the Tigers.

But that didn’t last.

Down the stretch, Clemson made up ground on IU, and with about 50 meters left, an IU rower failed to cleanly release the water after finishing her stroke, leaving her blade stuck in the water.

The mistake cost IU a few strokes and allowed the Tigers to finish at the line right alongside the Hoosiers.

“As frustrating as this is, I can already tell the rowers have learned a big lesson from it and are going to be stronger moving forward in our season because of it,” Peterson said.

 - Robby Howard