Virginia rowing hosted Duke, North Carolina and Minnesota on its home Rivanna Reservoir Sunday, and the regatta consisted of competitions in the Varsity Eight, Novice Eight and Varsity Four events. The Cavaliers dominated, winning first place in all three events on the 3,900-meter course. This final showing in Virginia’s fall season allows fans to look ahead to the spring with high hopes.
Virginia entered five crews into the Varsity Eight contest versus four boats from the Blue Devils, four Tar Heels crews and three Gopher crews. The Cavaliers’ first varsity eight finished the course first with a time of 13:26 — 16 seconds faster than Virginia’s second varsity eight crew, who were in tough competition with Duke's first varsity eight.
Virginia's third, fourth and fifth varsity eights came in 8th, 15th and 16th place, respectively, with the Cavalier third eight beating out all other third varsity crews. Once again, Coach Wesley Ng’s bunch has exhibited that Virginia’s dominance spreads from the top down.
The second race of the day was the Novice competition, where the Cavaliers and Blue Devils entered one boat each. There was no competition — Virginia was able to cross the line with 25 seconds to spare over Duke. With a strong showing from their new rowers, the Cavaliers can continue looking to a future of dominance.
The Rivanna Romp concluded with the varsity fours chasing one another down the course — and once again, Virginia showed up. Having entered four crews into the event, the Cavaliers placed first, second and fourth in the event — their reign split only by Minnesota's first varsity four — marking a clean sweep for Virginia across the board.
The Cavaliers’ race to victory caps off an extremely dominant opening to Ng's position with the team. As Virginia prepares for more competitive spring racing, it will be interesting to see how Ng's new techniques maintain Virginia’s dominance. His philosophies differ from former Coach Kevin Sauer, which senior rower Meagan Goldsmith noted.
“[Our training] is super movement and strength based,” Goldsmith said. “Just repeating the same thing rather than doing long cardio sessions, and that's something that I think will carry over into the spring super well for this year.”
Cavalier fans will be excited to see how this team, which has shown consistently positive results in the past, will adjust to their new coaching staff in the upcoming months.
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