2013 ACRA National Championships Regatta Preview

The American Collegiate Rowing Association’s National Championship is a relatively new regatta. However, it is well attended by club programs across the country. As such, it is becoming an important regatta for the Tribe who have shown recent success. Last year the ML4+ took bronze, and the W1X took Gold and Bronze. This year the Tribe will again be sending boats to Gainesville, Ga.

Men’s Novice:

The novice men rowed an 8+ at Dad Vails and advanced to semifinals.  There, these lightweights battled against heavyweights from powerhouses such as UVA and Purdue.  They look to build on that experience at ACRAs as they return to small boats.  They will be rowing a novice light 4+, an event they claimed at SIRAs by open water.  In their semifinal at 9:31 AM on Saturday they will face Rochester, Chicago, UCSB and Murray St.  They  need to finish in the top three to advance.

The novice men will also be entering a pair.  However, there is no formal MN2- event, so they will row up in the varsity M2- category at 9:42AM.  This is not the first time, as these boys raced against varsity competition at Rockett’s Landing earlier.  The top two crews in their heat will advance to the final, with the rest going to repechage.  Repechage is a common practice at large regattas.  It reshuffles the lower crews and gives them a change to race against new competition.  The top crews after “reps” will then advance to the later round after proving themselves in these additional races.

Bow: Martin Liu ’16