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Rowing team hopes to settle score

By Max Rothman

Friday, October 9, 2009

This time Kansas rowing is looking to avenge.

As the team heads west to Manhattan for the Sunflower Showdown on Saturday at Tuttle Creek Lake, it has extra motivation to win this weekend’s race against Kansas State.

The last time these two teams met, Kansas led 8-4 going into the final race day of the fight for the Kansas Cup. But Kansas State’s first Varsity Eight boat prevailed in the end, as Kansas suffered a 12-8 defeat.

“I think the rivalry definitely carries over,” senior Katie Beall said. “There’s a neck-and-neck attitude.”

Coming off an impressive weekend in Oklahoma, Kansas seems breakdown proof and poised to again challenge its cross-state foe.

“We’ve picked up right where we left off from prior seasons, whereas before it seemed like we’ve had to start over,” senior Brittany Belford said. “We’ve just got to keep striving for more.”

Experience is essential to the success of this year’s team. Comfort on the water helped Kansas succeed right off the bat last weekend.

“We went out in eights right off and picked it up like we never dropped it off,” Belford said of the weekend’s races.

However it’s still so early in the season that the team’s main goal has been getting solid races from the team as a whole and building from there.

“You can’t really judge performance yet, because not everyone is training the same,” coach Rob Catloth said.

Fall is only a small portion of the rowing team’s schedule. But this weekend, when the crimson and blue clash with the rivaled royal purple, it won’t look like just another fall match-up.

“It could go either way,” Beall said. “Everyone has to have their best race to beat them.”

— Edited by Abbey Strusz

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