The rowing team opened the 2010-2011 season at the Chattanooga Head Race on the Tennessee River this past weekend. Competing against the Tide at the regatta were schools such as Emory, Tennessee, Georgia Tech and Clemson.

“We did a really good job,” head coach Larry Davis said. “We did better than we did last year as far as medal count. I think we were a lot closer to somebody like Tennessee, who’s been to the NCAA Championships.”

The team collected six medals at the tournament, including two gold, three silver and a bronze for both the varsity and novice teams.

The Tide took a total of 11 boats to the regatta, including eight Varsity 8+, one Novice 8+, two Varsity 4+, three pairs and two double scull boats.

At the regatta, the team also got closer to overcoming Tennessee and claiming a top spot in the Southeast.

“We definitely did better than we did last year,” junior co-captain Laura Skaggs said. “We had a better showing, and we got a lot closer to Tennessee, which is our ultimate goal.”

To improve and become more competitive among other Division-I teams, Davis said the team has to bring some intensity.

“The big thing I wanted us to work on, and what we’re focusing on this week, is a greater level of intensity and an urgency as far as making things happen,” Davis said. “We need to be a bit more aggressive. I think we have a little more in ourselves than we exhibited as far as intensity that we need.”

Along with intensity, consistency throughout the 5,000 meters is another concept the team is focusing on in practice to prepare for their next regatta.

“We are working on more consistency throughout,” sophomore co-captain Kristen Iverson said. “We are going to try to stay at a consistent speed the whole time in hopes that it will make us go faster in the long run.”

The novice team made some noise at the Head Race, winning the Novice 8+ competition by nearly two minutes. The regatta was the first time some of the rowers competed together.

“I was kind of nervous because they really only had a couple of weeks to go from nothing,” head novice coach Derek Tuten said. “They did really well and really handled [the competition] well. They did a lot better than I thought they would.”

This weekend the novice team will head to Huntsville and compete in the Hobbs Island Regatta. Though the team rowed a novice boat in the Championship 8+ last year, the Tide still came out on top. The team will enter a novice boat in the Collegiate 8+ again this year.

“This coming weekend I’m racing a boat that raced last weekend in the varsity category,” Tuten said. “They’ll be racing against people that have been rowing for up to four years.”

They will have a second boat racing in the novice category. Tuten said they are racing up a level to see how the team will do against the competition. The Hobbs Regatta will be another place for the Tide to see where they stand.

“We want to see how the first boat handles the pressure of being in a higher category, and the second boat – it’ll all be their first time to race,” Tuten said. “The goal is mainly to win, but to also make sure we can handle the pressure.”

The varsity team will be back in action Oct. 23 and 24 when it heads to Boston for the Head of the Charles Regatta. Some of the best rowing teams from around the country and the world will be at the largest two-day regatta in the world, and the Tide has a chance to make its mark.

“Our goal this year is, instead of getting a silver or a bronze like we’ve done in the last few years, to see if we can get gold,” Davis said. “This year, we want to be top 10, preferably maybe even top five. It’s a very high goal, but that’s what we’re shooting for. We want to see if we can get gold.”