2015 Rowing Season Outlook
Mar 27 | Women's Rowing
PISCATAWAY, N.J. - The Rutgers women's rowing team embarks on its inaugural Big Ten season Saturday in Cherry Hill, N.J., where the Scarlet Knights will compete in the Murphy Cup. In all, RU has five races on the schedule this spring, building toward the Big Ten Rowing Championships from May 16-17 in Indianapolis, Ind.
"The team is in a good spot. The training in Florida [during the offseason] went really well," said head coach Max Borghard. "We were able to take some time both on the rowing machine and on the water and things are pointing in an upward direction compared to where we were a year ago. I know we're antsy to get into our first boat, second boat type lineups to see where we're at."
A trio of juniors will lead the squad as captains this season, including 2014 CRCA Central Second Team All-Region rower, Veronica Desalvo (Plymouth, Minn.).
Coxswain Christina McGinnis (Ringwood, N.J.), a 2014 CRCA Scholar-Athlete, and Bailey Irelan (Delaware, Ohio), who served as the stroke on the First Varsity 8 last season, will also captain the 2015 Scarlet Knights.
"The captains have really stepped into the leadership role," Borghard said. "They're all brand new captains this year after we graduated all three senior captains last year. Through the fall they developed their leadership skills and have done a nice job in terms of keeping everything very simple.
"The team is a lot more mature. We've had several people that have, even though they're not captains, been doing some very good leading."
In all, 27 Scarlet Knights with experience on the water return from last year's squad, while 15 freshmen begin their careers "On the Banks."
"I think the 1v and the 2v are just going to be better," Borghard said. "The Varsity Four was really good last year and we've got a few of them in the mix here helping out the 1v and 2v. It's hard to know what's going to happen until you really unfold everything. But we feel good about where we are.
"We've got some benchmarks from last year in early April and late April that we'd like to reach to see how we can compare with those numbers. We're looking forward to those benchmarks as well as racing."
Development through the fall season and into the spring has been instrumental in meshing the team's youth and upperclassman experience.
"It's been a really good steady climb through the whole year. We can look at the erg scores from last year to this year and there's a nice jump," Borghard said. "We're a little more experienced as well and also just healthier."
Following the Murphy Cup this weekend, Rutgers will travel to Columbus, Ohio, to race Big Ten competition on April 11, when the Scarlet Knights will take the water against Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Two more races round out the month of April. Rutgers competes against St. Joseph's and Navy on April 18 in Philadelphia, Pa., before traveling north to Worcester, Mass., to take on Holy Cross and MIT on April 25.
Once again, the Eastern Sprints on May 3 offer the final tune-up for Rutgers prior to the championship season commencing. With a relatively similar schedule as last season, Borghard see's advantages to building on times from a year ago.
"We really try to make it about ourselves and our own boat speed and taking those steps," Borghard said. "I think right now we're at a stage where we've got to be better than we were a year ago and race our best and use those teams that are faster than us to see where our level of performance is."
Rutgers will compete in its first-ever Big Ten Championships from May 16-17 in Indianapolis, Ind. The competition will be stiff, but the Scarlet Knights are focused on their own performance as the Big Ten era begins.
"You're going to see the very best, and it's like a lot of the other sports - the Big Ten is very strong and very deep. We're going to see where we are and where we measure. This is the first year of racing in the Big Ten Championships and we want to take it as far as we can in this first year, but continue to move forward."
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