The Wisconsin men’s crew stunned Washington Saturday on the Montlake Cut in Seattle to hold on to the W Cup for a second-straight year. Washington broke fast off the line and opened up a small lead for the first 500 meters of the 2,000-meter stretch. In a fashion almost mirroring the Badgers’ W Cup performance in 2003, the eight-man crew closed the gap by the midway point and secured a boat-length lead by 1,500 meters. Wisconsin held that lead for the final leg, winning by a furious time of 5:55.0 over Washington’s 5:57.5.
News of the Wisconsin victory came as a shock to much of the rowing community. While both crews shared a No. 5 ranking going into the weekend, Washington had fallen three spots from the previous week following a disappointing third-place performance at the San Diego Crew Classic. The Badgers’ No. 5 prelim ranking held up after snatching seven of eight races from Michigan in the season opener. However, going into the W Cup, it was widely considered that the two equally ranked squads were not equal in ability.
“If it’s not going well, you worry,” head coach Chris Clark said. “And then when it is going well, you worry that either it’s not for real, or else just how do you keep it going. On paper this is not a strong group; anyone will tell you that. I was expecting it to be somewhat competitive, but [Washington] has the strongest team in terms of grunt power in the history of collegiate rowing.”
Yet while the extremely deep but nevertheless restructuring Huskies were still in the process of toying with the setup of their top boat, the Badgers appeared virtually flawless, displaying cohesion usually not prevalent so early in the year. Senior coxswain Mike Lucey played the key role in keeping the Badger boat on track and ahead of Washington.
“Even though we draw up lanes, we had lane two. Lane two is not very good, period,” Clark lamented. “In lane one, you don’t have any variants. It’s easy to follow because the land is right there. With lane two, you can drift all over the place, and if you go even slightly off-course you’re adding distance to the course. But Lucey steered it perfectly, which really makes a huge difference.”
“It seemed to me at the start like [Washington] definitely had the talent to beat anyone,” Badger three seat Anders Boyd said. “They certainly have the IRA medals to back up their strong performances. I didn’t think we had that much of a chance to win, but I figured we’d go the first 500 meters and at that point see what’s going on. As soon as I saw we had contact with them, I knew we could pull it off.”
Conditions on the Montlake Cut proved characteristically inhospitable the morning of the race. Temperatures hovered below 50 and winds whipped out of the east, providing for a strong cross-tail wind at the start and a tailwind through the cut. The site, which also hosts the annual Windermere Cup regatta, runs along the shoreline of the University of Washington campus.
The battle of the UWs began in 1993 to provide both crews with a round of solid competition in the opening weeks of the season. For Washington, the event serves as a precursor to a string of races pitting them against the challenging crews of the Pacific coastline. Wisconsin benefits from facing a national-caliber boat as opposed to the floating mediocrity that row for most universities throughout the Midwest.
Washington claimed the title for the first 10 years of the event. The Badger varsity eight, featuring current first-boat rowers Micah Boyd and Alex Cockerill, and Olympic hopefuls Beau Hoopman and Eric Meuller, captured the W Cup for the first time in 2003, defeating the Huskies in Madison by 2.9 seconds. Following that loss, the Huskies turned around to snag silver at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships and a subsequent romp through Henley Royal Regatta. Tyler Resch, Mike Tupek, Jason Devlin, Anders Boyd, Shawn Wanta and Kyle Schaible stepped up from lower boats to join Boyd, Cockerill and Lucey to complete this year’s W Cup champion squad.
The W Cup will now remain in Madison, gracing some cardboard box until November, when the completion of the new UW Crew House provides it with a more suitable home.
Wisconsin returns to Madison to host the Midwest Rowing Championships April 24. Washington continues on its torrid schedule, facing No. 2 California next week, followed by a three-way bout with the Italian national crew and No. 7 Navy for the 18th annual Windermere Cup.
