Robinson Crew Women's third varsity eight locked in second place in the Ted Phoenix lower boat state championships Saturday at Sandy Run Regional Park.
Coached by Lauren Griffin, the boat finished with a time of 5:15.39, just 1.89 seconds behind Thomas Jefferson, and 3.27 seconds ahead of third-place TC Williams.
The women's 4v8 placed third in its race. The Men's 3v8 and 4v8 each placed fifth. All results can be found at http://www.vasra.org/uploads/Ted-Phoenix-Regatta-2014-all-results-chronological.pdf
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Ted Phoenix finished out the official regatta season for the novice and freshman teams, who had a challenging, but abbreviated season, with late winter and early spring storms. Most of them had less than four races before this Saturday. They battled driving rain in their first regatta at St. Andrews, and suffered many other weather cancellations throughout the season.
So it almost seemed like fate when heavy rains flooded the Occoquan on Thursday before the Ted Phoenix, and forced a late start on Saturday. Even with volunteers from all schools and the Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association working late night Friday and early morning Saturday, the rowers still dodged debris as they worked their way to the starting line.
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"Its been tough for them," Coach Jon Barrett said recently about the novices. "We had them race at St. Andrew's after less than 10 practices, then the Arlington Cup novice events were cancelled [due to high winds], so things took a while to get going. As a whole, they've been pretty eager to learn, which is the most important thing."
State Championships for the upper boats will be held Saturday at Sandy Run.
