Tide rowing sweeps Kansas State in opener

TUSCALOOSA | The University of Alabama rowing team made a clean sweep of Kansas State on the Black Warrior River on Monday, blanking the Wildcats 8-0 in the Crimson Tide’s first meet of the spring season.

“Kansas State is a big, strong team and our goal was to come out here and win all eight races,” UA head coach Larry Davis said. “It was a bit of a high goal I thought, but we were able to do it. One of the things I liked is that we were able to respond to what they were doing and we were able to make our moves when we wanted to. We showed some maturity and we’re going to need that this weekend at Clemson.”

Alabama bettered its showing against the Wildcats from a year ago when the Tide won three of the five races.

Alabama’s “A” Novice 8+ boat, in their first competition on the collegiate level, posted a time of 5:41.5 in the first race, bettering KSU by five seconds. The Tide shaved some time off its time in the second Novice 8+ race of the day, crossing the line at 5:17.7, nearly 20 seconds better than the Wildcats.

Alabama’s First Varsity 8+ was the only boat to go under the five-minute mark on the day, posting a time of 4:59.7 over the 1500-meter course in the day’s last race, finishing two seconds ahead of KSU. The First Varsity 8+ also won its first race of the day with a 5:26.0, 12 seconds ahead of Kansas State.

Alabama’s Third Varsity 8+ won its races with times of 5:14.6 and 5:09.2 while the Tide’s Second Varsity 8+ won its races by crossing the line at 5:13.7 and 5:14.0.

The Tide travels to Clemson, S.C., this weekend to take on Clemson, Indiana, Marist and Purdue.