After its season opener against Michigan State, the University of Alabama rowing team will be heading to Tennessee to compete in the Oak Ridge Cardinal Invitational.
(See also “Rowing team to face Michigan State“)
Hosted by No. 20 Louisville, Alabama has competed in the race for the past three years. As the first true race of the season, coach Larry Davis said his team gained confidence from a scrimmage against Michigan State.
“I would say last weekend gave us a bit more confidence,” Davis said. “We’re reasonably close to a high level team. I think it gave us the idea that if we do certain things we can compete against these people.”
(See also “Alabama rowing team gears up with rigorous preparation“)
Though the first race of the spring season was only a scrimmage, Davis said his team learned how to handle top–10 teams.
“We wanted to test the waters, so to speak,” Davis said. “Going up against a high–level team like Michigan State can be a little bit intimidating but what we wanted to get out of that was not necessarily being over-impressed by how they race.”
Davis also said the Crimson Tide will face many high-ranking teams over the course of the season, and though Alabama raced some of the top teams in the fall, it won’t compare to who the team will face in the spring, including No. 5 Virginia, No. 16 Wisconsin and No. 20 Louisville. Davis said his team is responding well to the competition.
(See also “UA rowing team prepares for Head of the Hooch“)
“One of the things that I saw this year at the first scrimmage is a level of composure where, if we didn’t do something right in the first piece, we didn’t get rattled and we didn’t freak out,” Davis said.
While at Oak Ridge, Alabama will have three chances to race against the tough opponents. With a game plan in motion, Davis is confident that his team can adapt to the competition after scrimmaging against Michigan State.
“We want to go out and have not so much of a learning curve our first true race,” Davis said. “And having raced [Michigan State] helped us.”
