Photo: Hilary Dietz

The Drake women’s crew squad finished off its fall season in the team’s annual dual meet against Creighton and proudly brought a victory back to the Drake campus for the second year in a row.

A dual meet, unlike a regatta, only involves two teams.

At 9:30 a.m. last Saturday, while most strudents were still rolling out of bed, the rowing team was suiting up and hopping into the Des Moines River. Even though this was only the team’s fourth race of the season, the women have said that it was one of the highlights of the year. Rowing season is split into two halves — a fall regatta season that goes into November, and a spring regatta season that starts in March. The fall season focuses mainly on distance races, usually six kilometers long, while the spring season consists of sprinting races that are usually two kilometers long.

Because of these differences, it’s difficult to predict how the spring season will go based on the record of the fall season. Still, senior captain Kat Moore has an optimistic outlook.

“The team has had good momentum through the fall, and hopefully that’ll roll into the spring,” Moore said.

Senior Brittney Smith agrees with her teammate, and she commented on how tight-knit the girls are this year and how the team mentality that comes with rowing will only help them as the year progresses.

Most of the girls on the team came to Drake having played several sports in high school, but they gave that up with the transition to college. Nearly all agreed that they missed the competitive spirit and team camaraderie, so that is why they chose to join the rowing team.

Rowing certainly is competitive — these women get up at 5:30 a.m. every day to practice on the Des Moines River. They train year-round, working out indoors and erging, which is using a dry-land rowing machine called an ergometer, during the offseason.