PHILADELPHIA, Penn. - With every school being effected by inclement weather at the Dad Vail regatta, the Humboldt State women's rowing team finished fifth in Saturday's Division II/III varsity eight petite final.
The Lumberjacks finished their day with a fifth place finish in the Division II/III petite final with a time of eight minutes, and .309 seconds. Orange Coast College took first with a time of 7:46.130.
The Jacks advanced to the petite final by finishing fifth in their semi final heat, which was moved up an hour to 7:30 a.m., with a time of 6:59.795.
"We didn't do exceptionally well in the sense that people looked and felt tired," Humboldt State head women's rowing coach Robin Meiggs said. "In the semi final race we were definitely in the faster of the two heats."
HSU returns to Sacramento next Saturday to try and earn a spot at nationals at the NCAA qualifying regatta.
"These conditions were bad for everyone," Meiggs said. "I don't think there was anything we could have done different. The athletes rowed as hard as they could. Seattle Pacific finished fourth and our now guaranteed an at large bid to nationals.
"We came here knowing that if we had the opportunity to beat Florida Tech, Nova and Barry, which in the preliminaries we did pretty well against them, that that would put us ahead of their entire region, but the conditions just didn't prevail. I just don't think the outcome could have been any different. So now we'll just go the PCRC regatta next week and race against Western Washington and UCSD and go from there."
Heat One
1. Mercyhurst College - 6:43.165
2. Rochester - 6:47.150
3. Philadelphia University - 6:47.288
4. Orange Coast College - 6:47.821
5. Humboldt State - 6:59.795
6. Florida Tech 7:12.624
Heat Two
1. Grand Valley - 6:51.803
2. Seattle Pacific 6:54.563
3. Dowling - 6:58.654
4. Nova - 7:00.179
5. Barry - 7:03.842
6. Washington University (St. Louis) - 7:21.589
Petite Final
1. Orange Coast College - 7:46.130
2. Florida Tech - 7:49.528
3. Washington University (St. Louis) - 7:56.410
4. Barry - 7:57.125
5. Humboldt State - 8:00.309
6. Nova - 8:02.757