Kansas Wins Final Three Events of Sunday to Conclude Oklahoma Invitational
March 13, 2011
OKLAHOMA CITY –
Kansas rowing won its final three races Sunday to conclude the Oklahoma Invitation, capping off a weekend that saw the team win races in each category at least once in the four racing sessions.
Kansas’ two Varsity Four teams defeated Creighton in the 1:30 p.m. Sunday race. The first team crossed the line in 9:10.75, while the second team was close behind at 9:15.83. In the next event, KU topped Creighton again, this time in the Second Varsity Eight. The Jayhawks won handily with a time of 8:06.51 versus CU’s time of 8:29.09. In the final event of the Invitational, KU knocked off Creighton one final time, crossing the line in 7:52.35.
Kansas head coach Rob Catloth said it was a good weekend considering the team had not been able to practice on the water much leading up to the Invitational.
“We haven’t been on the water too many times, so just having more races helped,” said Catloth. “We were basically racing after only being on the water five or six days.”
On Saturday evening, Kansas won both novice races in exciting fashion. In the Second Novice Eight, KU edged the Sooners by 1.16 seconds with a time of 7:50.46. Kansas then defeated Oklahoma in the Novice Eight race by less than a second (.87 seconds), posting a time of 7:47.05.
“They had a really good opening weekend,” Catloth said about the novices. “For only being on the water six or seven times and racing some southern California teams, I think they did really well. They got better as every race went on, and that’s what we’re looking for people to do.”
In the Sunday morning racing session, Kansas won multiple events again, defeating Tulsa in the Novice Eight by more than 11 seconds, finishing the race in 8:03.61. The Jayhawks later defeated Tulsa in the Second Varsity Eight by exactly four seconds with an official time of 7:48.06.
Kansas will now have three weeks off before it hosts Texas at Wyandotte County Lake in Kansas City, Kan., on April 2. Catloth said the team will use all three weeks to improve.
“The primary thing is getting water time,” said Catloth. “We really just need water time. We’re hoping to use these three weeks to work on race plans, starts and final sprints. We basically haven’t done any race preparation. We just spent six days on the water, and then we had four races. Essentially we just have to catch up on water time. We don’t even know who our fastest people are right now. We have a lot of work to do. We’ll need the whole three weeks.”
