Rowing defeated multiple competitors at the GW Invitational held on the Georgetown Waterfront this weekend, which included a total of eight teams.
The Revolutionaries took all but one race, with the first and second varsity eight boats going undefeated. The invitational returned to the Potomac River for the first time since the 2018-19 season after COVID-19 paused the University’s athletics competitions and the hiring of a new coaching staff.
“I’m very pleased with how the season’s going for us and there’s more to look forward to and I think it just keeps getting better and better as we get more confident and keep doing what we have to do every day,” junior Mary Grace Konopka said in an interview.
The invite also hosted a men’s tournament where the men’s club rowing team competed. Their first and second varsity eight boats beat their competitor, University of North Carolina, twice, earning times of 5:39.6 and 5:52.9, respectively.
The Revolutionaries’ varsity eight defeated North Carolina on Friday afternoon, rowing a time of 6:07.4 and earning first in the event. GW bested the Tar Heels by 7.3, maintaining their momentum Saturday morning to defeat Drexel by 4.1 seconds with a time of 6:19.25.
GW’s varsity eight boat was manned by graduate students Alexa Nealy and Ezi Emenike; senior Flannery Dunn; juniors Konopka and Eliza Price; and sophomores Brianne Wieczorek, Kendall Dorn and Anna Golbus. Junior Caroline Crutsinger-Perry coxed the top varsity boat to success in the weekend invitational.
The second varsity eight boat also took home a pair of victories over Drexel and North Carolina with times of 6:26.1 and 6:15.6, respectively.
“If we can execute and believe that our best is going to be really hard to deal with for other crews, that’s gonna put us in a successful place,” Head Coach Paul Allbright said. “And win, lose or draw if we do that, that’s all you can do in life is prepare the best you can, execute the best you can, and the results are going to take care of themselves and work out how they’re supposed to.”
The only GW loss of the weekend came from the third varsity eight boat who lost to UNC by 8.6 seconds, finishing with a time of 6:46.6.
Several women’s events were consolidated into a singular morning session Saturday, with others cut in anticipation of high winds on the waterfront in the afternoon. Wind gusts in D.C. topped 50 miles per hour Saturday afternoon. All four-person events scheduled for later in the day were scrapped from the invite as a result.
Several Saint Joseph’s University boats filled with water due to the wind during their warmup, prompting the team to pull out of races on Saturday morning. The Revolutionaries were set to face the Hawks before they were forced to pull out from the race due to the wind and swamped boats.
The squad will head to Fairfax, Virginia, later this week for the George Mason Invitational on April 21.
