The men’s and women’s crew teams were in action once again this weekend competing against Division III foes Union and St. Lawrence and Division I opponents Fairfield for the men and Sacred Heart for the women.
“We knew going into this weekend that Union and Fairfield were going to be tough races,” said Robert Iuliano, stroke seat of the men’s 8-plus. “It’s always more challenging when you have three races in two days. We’ve got 18 men that have been training hard so we knew we had a few wins in us.”
The Red Hawk men narrowly defeated Union with a come-from-behind win on Saturday morning and then went on to race St. Lawrence in the afternoon. St. Lawrence jumped out to an early lead, but Rensselaer proved too much, rowing past them to a 13 second victory.
The men topped Fairfield University by a boat-length of open water in the 2000 meter race. “These guys are tough competitors and there are not many crews that can stay with them during the final stretch of a race,” said Coach Todd Rutecki. The varsity men’s 8-plus is now 7-0 on the season and 3-0 in the UCAA.
The Red Hawk women walked away with equally positive results. After defeating Union College by two seconds, the varsity women’s 8-plus went on to defeat St. Lawrence by a similar margin in the afternoon. “These were two important races for us,” said Coach Rutecki. “Both are UCAA opponents and both are very fierce rivalries. This is a great place to be for the UCAA Championship Regatta on April 24.”
The women’s crew also topped Sacred Heart on Sunday, sweeping all of the varsity events: the 8-plus, the 4-plus, and the lightweight 4-plus.
The women’s crew received votes in the College Rowing Coaching Association/USRowing National Collegiate Pre-season Poll for D-III schools. “After speaking to a member of the committee that does the ranking, we learned we are not eligible to be ranked in the national poll as we aren’t sponsored through our athletic department. For our women, this is exciting because it appears that we would have come in 12th or 13th in the poll otherwise,” said Coach Rutecki.
