Column by Ashley Beall

Our team just finished our conference season competing in New Jersey on April 26. It was the moment that we had been preparing for since last September. Unfortunately, it didn’t go quite as planned.

We finished sixth in the MAAC conference, and our boats struggled.

The shining moment for us was our second varsity eight boat that finished second in the grand finale. It was a great finish for the boat and for the team.

I was a member of the varsity four boat, and we had a bumpy road leading up to conference.

Our team was struggling to find a final member to fill up the boat, and we were finally able to have a former teammate come back and re-join. We had only practiced a few times in our lineup before our conference championship.

We ended up finishing last in both of our heats, and on paper, it doesn’t look so good.

However, out on the water it was a completely different story. We really came together as a boat and were able to pull together.

We hit a higher rating than we did in practice and were able to finish each race and come off the water feeling proud of ourselves. Our boat did the best it could.

If our boat had a little more time together to practice, it would have been a completely different race for us.

As for the first varsity eight boat, they endured some struggles in their first heat and didn’t make the grand finale and had to compete in the petite final.

It was not ideal and not what we were hoping for. However, they made the best of it and came back and won the petite final.

Overall, the conference season was not what we had imagined. We were disappointed with the end result and were hoping for a better outcome, but it was our assistant coach who reminded us that it was just a race.

She told us how it was not one person’s fault that we lost. We did the best we could do and left all our anxieties and worries on the water.

We cannot focus on the negatives but simply try again next year.

We have seven seniors graduating this year, and that means we are going to have some spots to fill in each of the three boats for next year.

We are simply going to have to rise to the challenge and remind ourselves of the disappointment we felt this year and use this to motivate us to do better the next time around.

No matter what the results, we are Bulldogs and we are one.

Beall is a sophomore public relations and English double major and can be reached at [email protected]