Spending six out of seven days a week, eighth periods and countless hours on the bus to and from the Occoquan river, team members of Jefferson crew’s lower boats have spent the majority of their time from February until early May preparing for the upcoming Ted Phoenix Championship Regatta on May 3.

In order to be completely prepared for the day, both rowers and coxswains trained hard by practicing the timing of the boats, proper technique and maintaining powerful strokes throughout the race. However, although the team has continued to train their muscles throughout the season, they can only estimate how fast other boats will be on the day of the regatta.

“The intensity was much higher last race than in the previous races,” junior Emily Rogers, a rower on the women’s third eight, said. “The pressure of having a boat that kept up with us for the entire race brought out more determination to win in our boat.”

Last week, at the Al Urquia Regatta on April 26, the lower boats from the women’s team competed up one category, in which the fifth eight raced in the fourth eight category and the fourth eight competed as a third eight. However, the women’s third eight competed as a junior varsity eight, and their first place finish last week may allow them to continue racing up a category and to potentially qualify to attend nationals.

The women’s freshmen eight also experienced improvement at the Al Urquia Regatta from their race at the St. Andrews Regatta on April 19. The boat placed second at Al Urquia, and hopes to keep up the streak of success during the State Championships at the Ted Phoenix Regatta.

“It felt pretty nice after we finished,” freshman Christine Wang said. “Our coach actually gave us an A- for the race.”