PHILIDELPHIA, Pa. (October 29, 2005.) - The University of Connecticut women's rowing team competed at the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta in Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon.  The Varsity 8, composed of  Katie Beasley (Centerville, Mass.), Alison Elmo (Highland Hills, N.Y.), Stephanie Chivers (Dalton, Mass.), Brooke Grauer (Fairfield, Conn.), Caitlin Meisinger (Bristol, Conn.), Kali Garges (Queche, Vt.), Nicole Rapp (Mansfield, Conn.), Erin Bartie (Westport, Conn. and Valerie Voorhees (Liverpool, N.Y.) and Second Varsity 8, composed of Gabbey LaChance (Mystic, Conn.), Erin Andersen (Barrington, R.I.), Christina Cotter (West Seneca, N.Y.), Katie Devonshuk (Beacon Halls, Conn.), Kellly McGary (Lewisville, N.C.), Whitney Peterson (Salem, Mass.), Heather Cannon (Wallingford, Conn.), Monica Parker (Glastonbury, Conn.) and Kerri Mocko (Stafford Springs, Conn.) raced in the Championship Eight event and finished 9th and 18th, respectively, out of 22  rowers.  The U.S. Naval Academy won the event in a time of 13:48.94.  The UConn varsity raced the course in 14:06, only 18 seconds out of first place.  The UConn second varsity finished with a time of 14:37.82.

"I am very pleased with the results," said head coach Jen Sanford.  "Being 18 seconds out of first place in a 14 minute race tells us that we are within striking distance to any of the crews that finished ahead of us.  What place we got doesn't really mean a lot to me, it's how far away we are from the crews that finished in front of us, and I was very happy with that result."

 

UConn raced two fours in the Open Four event and finished 19th and 20th out of 37 boats.  The Three Rivers Rowing association finished first with a time of 15:42.22.  UConn finished in 17:06.09 and 17:08.18.

"I tried to make two equal boats for this race," said Sanford. "Looking at the results, they were about as even as they could be.  I was very pleased with the performance of these crews."

 

The final race of the day for UConn was the Novice 8.  UConn finished a strong 17th out of 58 boats.  The winner in the event was Columbia at 14:32.21.  UConn's time was 16:05.01. 

"The novice 8 rowed extremely well," said Sanford.  "There were several walk-ons in the boat who were racing for the first time.  They did a great job and we were very excited with how good they looked racing by.  The poor weather in the past two weeks limited the practice time for us, so I was really happy with how well we rowed given our lack of water time."