Rowing Closes Out Fall Season This Weekend


The Daily Athenaeum (WVU)
29 October 2009
By John Terry, Associate Sports Editor

After showing steady improvement in its first two meets of the year, the West Virginia rowing team will travel to Fair-fax, Va., to close out the fall sea-son at the Head of the Occoquan Saturday.

WVU head rowing coach Jimmy King uses the fall sea-son to evaluate the team and emphasize certain areas of improvement.

The third-year head coach said he does not concentrate on results in the fall season but in-stead uses it to assess the different strengths and weaknesses of the team.

Particularly this fall, King is trying to develop rowers who can row from different sides of the boat in order to have more options for different lineups before the more competitive spring season begins.

King has been happy with his team through the first two meets of the fall season, especially with its depth and progress. However, the coach says there is still plenty of room for improvement.

In its first regatta this sea-son - the Head of the Ohio - the Mountaineers earned two top-six finishes against 14 boats in the 8+ competition.

At the Head of the Mon on Oct. 10, West Virginia had boats finish in first and fourth place in the 8+ competition.

In the open 4+ competition, West Virginia had three top-six finishers with times of 0:21:04, 0:21:23 and 0:21:40.

At the Head of the Occoquan Saturday, King will also be going up against two schools he used to coach for - Georgetown and George Washington.

Before coming to West Virginia in 2007, King was an assistant crew coach at Georgetown for 10 years.

The year before, he served as the head coach for the men's varsity crew team at George Washington.

The team's spring schedule has yet to be released.

john.terry@mail.wvu.edu