The Week that Was: Week 4
11/4/2008 12:00:00 AM | Rowing
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The Alabama rowing team capped a foggy week on the Black Warrior River with an outstanding Saturday at the Head of the Hooch Regatta, its final competition of the fall season.
"The week leading up the Head of the Hooch, in practice was a little dicey," head coach Larry Davis said. "In practice, we had to deal with, not bad weather, but fog in the mornings. We weren't able to get our strokes in like we would have liked to. So the prep time that we would have liked to have had before the Hooch was cut short to some degree. We didn't have a chance to practice our 4s, and we were basically shutout of two workouts last week."
The Tide made the most of the workouts they did have leading up to its trip to Chattanooga, where Alabama's novices earned three medals, including gold in the 8+ race.
"We had to modify things to accommodate the weather," Davis said. "It was not what I would call an ideal situation, but things like that happen at this time of year. Based on that week of prep I think we performed quite well. The novices had a very good weekend and I don't think they've reached their full potential yet. That was the best performance out of a novice group that we've had to date and a lot of that has to do with what we've been doing over the past two or three years, getting recruits in and what we've been working on is starting to show up in how we race."
The Tide's varsity posted some strong times at the Head of the Hooch, faster than the year before even if its placings weren't what they were the year before.
"In reality, even though we didn't place as well as we did last year with the varsity boats, looking at times, we are still ahead of the game compared to last season," Davis said. "What we found is that there are some really fast crews out there, some crews that have really stepped it up as well. And it's something where we have to see that challenge and go after it."
In year-three as an NCAA Division I program, Alabama has made giant strides, moving quickly to the point where they are competing against top tier programs.
"Something that we're going to be working on as we go through the next several weeks, now that we're back in the off-season, is that we don't want to lose our focus and we want to make sure that we continue to work toward our goals for the spring," Davis said. "We need to make the kind of adjustments necessary as a squad and as individuals so that we're ready to race and race hard from the get go this spring. It's not that we haven't been working hard to this point, but I think last weekend our varsity kind of had that `ah ha' moment where they realized they have to work that much harder to race at the highest level."
