OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — In the inaugural SEC Rowing Championship, Tennessee rowing fell just short of accomplishing history.
The Lady Vols finished as runner-up in the SEC, behind Texas on Melton Lake on Sunday.
It was a neck-and-neck regatta throughout, as both schools picked up three wins apiece throughout the six races. The title came down to the final event of the day, the I Varsity Eight, as each squad’s top team battled til the end.
Eventually, Texas pulled away to claim the event title, creating distance with a three-second margin over the Lady Vols. Texas earned 36 points for the win, taking a total of 83 points for the day. Meanwhile, Tennessee finished in second place, accumulating 78 points.
“Definitely proud the team showed up today,” Tennessee head coach Kim Cupini said. “I never thought we’d had a chance at the points completely, because as a full team, Texas has been very, very deep at the conference championships in the Big 12.”
Despite not coming away with the win, it was an effort that Cupini was proud of. Now in her second season with Tennessee, the Lady Vols head coach has accumulated two runner-up finishes in her respective conference.
“To be here in the SEC and win quite a few events and have a shot at the overall team points all the way down to the wire in the Varsity Eight was amazing,” Cupini said. “We fell a little short, but it was awesome to see the fight.”
From the first event of the morning, Tennessee jumped out to a quick start. In the 3v4+, the Lady Vols ran away with a photo finish win. Coxswain Marissa Garcia guided the Lady Vols to squeaking by a win by two-tenths of a second at 7:19.123. Texas was close behind at 7:19.338.
The Lady Vols kept rolling with a win in the Third Varsity Eight as well, pacing the entire race for a wire-to-wire win. Tennessee gained seven seconds by the end of the 2000-meter race, jumping to an early 12 points, compared to Texas’s nine.
“It was really exciting to watch them and cheer for them, and we just told the women that we wanted to have them in there and fight against Texas,” Cupini said. “We knew they were going to be fast. And so those wins were so exciting.”
From there, Texas threatened right back.
The Longhorns stole the next two races to even up the wins at 2-all, while taking the lead in points.
A three-second win by Texas in the 2v4+ moved the margin to one point, before the Longhorns took the lead with separation in the 1v4+ race. Texas took an 11-second win, the largest margin of the six races between the Lady Vols and Longhorns, to move into first place for the regatta.
Tennessee’s 2v8+ squad responded in a big way, picking up a win with a time of 6:24.809 to best Texas and retake the lead.
“I was really impressed with the second eight to get the win,” Cupini said. “It was super impressive. And so the eight came out with a really fiery, aggressive first half, and I think they got a little flustered in the second — looked a little fatigued, and weren’t able to close.”
That left the final race to be the most important, as the regatta was intended to be.
Tennessee and Texas each made an aggressive push in the First Varsity Eight. The Lady Vols had a quick start, taking the lead through the first 1000m. Eventually, Texas caught up, and the fatigue kicked in for the host school.
A one-seat lead for Tennessee turned into a multi-seat lead for Texas, providing the dirty work down the stretch to seal the win with a time of 6:12.420. Tennessee followed behind at 6:15.586 to finish second in the event and the regatta.
“I was so excited for our young group,” Cupini said. “They’ve been working really hard and developing, and they want to show up for Tennessee. They wanted to represent Tennessee out here at Oak Ridge at home. So they definitely did that.”
Now with the postseason underway, the NCAA postseason is next on the schedule. Tennessee now has a look at its strengths and weaknesses after a tough battle with Texas, facing a turnaround of a couple of weeks before the next outing on May 30 at Mercer Lake in West Windsor, New Jersey.
“We have a lot of team depth and have a lot of speed in the boats,” Cupini said. “We can look at more speed for the fours, and definitely the eight can show up too. So we’re excited for NCAA’s.”
