Preview: Rowing fairs against West Virginia and Duquesne

Nick Hedderick, Contributor
October 12, 2018

The Robert Morris rowing team will participate in an event this weekend against both Duquesne and West Virginia. It will be the second race of their short season. Saturday’s event will include four total races. RMU will be looking to make the most out of this, as they look to bounce back from a rough start to their season.

The Colonials participated in the Findley Lake Classic back on September 29th. They came in last during this event. The host school, Mercyhurst, won with a time of 19:24.8. RMU would finish with a time of 21:10.59. Other schools included Canisius and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Robert Morris has had a fairly long break in between events, so it will be interesting to see if they can turn the tide on their season and have an impressive performance this weekend.

As for their opponents, this will be a big weekend for them as well. Duquesne will begin their regular season this weekend. They had a scrimmage against Pitt towards the end of September, and will now focus on making the most out of their first real event.

As for West Virginia, this will be their first taste of action on the season. They have not participated in any events at all so far this season. After this event, West Virginia and Duquesne will compete head to head on November 9th in Morgantown, West Virginia.

This is a difficult one to predict due to the fact that two of the three teams competing haven’t had a race that counts yet. However, Duquesne routinely finishes in the middle of the pack in their conference. West Virginia even fell to the Dukes when they competed last year. Robert Morris competed against Duquesne at the Duquesne Duels last year. They came in last at that event, and Duquesne finished second.

The race will be a very interesting one at that. Three schools relatively close to each other with two are rivals, will be battling it out this weekend. Be sure to stay tuned to RMU Sentry Media for updates on this event and much more.