With an eighth-place finish at the NCAA Championships in 2005, the University of Wisconsin women's openweight rowing team surprised many with its success.

Since being created in 1997, the program had only made four appearances at the national meet and notched its highest-ever result at the Championships last May.

As the Badgers begin fall training in preparation for the spring season, 25 rowers out of 45 on the roster participated in some manner at that NCAA meet. Head coach Bebe Bryans says she already has an "excellent" returning group with aspirations to reach an even higher mark in the 2006-07 season.

"We just finished a series of testing that we do at the very beginning of the season, and overall, our team is much more solid and stronger, especially from the middle to the top group," Bryans said. "They're faster than we were last year at this time, so that bodes really well. That means they trained well over the summer."

With the inclement weather as of late, the Badgers have been relegated to working indoors in preparation for their first meet of the year, Saturday's Milwaukee River Challenge. Wisconsin's rowers worked out on the lake without coaches during the summer, and were able to hit the water under Bryans' coaching for the first time Thursday.

"This is definitely a chance just for team bonding, to go have fun, to wear the uniform," senior class captain Jess Bartelt said. "We're racing each other. It's for pride; it's just for fun; it's a good time.

"And it's close to home, a lot of parents and friends can come; that's an awesome benefit," she said.

Out of a possible 13 scheduled regattas, only four occur inside the state of Wisconsin. Bryans' affinity for the River Challenge remains, despite the lack of a major competitive feeling.

"It's a fun time for people in Wisconsin to see us row; they don't get to see it very often," Bryans said. "It's a great venue because you can watch it from a lot of different spots."

Other than Wisconsin, the other racing schools include the men's and women's squads from Marquette, Northwestern and Purdue; also, rowing clubs from Madison, Chicago, and Duluth, Minn. are set to compete.

"The first competition we have, it's against mostly smaller schools and clubs, but it gives us a chance to get out on the water, start racing and see what combos work best," junior class captain Shayla Dvorak said.

The format of the Milwaukee River Challenge takes on quite a different form than most other regattas. According to Bryans, instead of moving in a straight shot, the boats will actually turn around at the halfway point, making it one of the only "two-way" regattas around.

"It's a little bit of a quirky race, because you stop, turn around and come back, so it's two races, really," Bryans said. "They merge the times, and the fastest combined time wins, so that's unique."

Bryans, who is in her third year as UW's head coach, said that while the results of the River Challenge may not dictate the outcome of Wisconsin's season, it's all part of the process toward becoming a stronger overall unit.

"The more seriously we take [fall training] without making it a drag, the better," Bryans said. "The harder that we work now, the better shape we get in now, the better set up we are for winter; and the better we are for winter, the faster we'll be in the spring.

"So it's a huge building block."

Bartelt added to that point by reiterating that the River Challenge simply serves to help the Badgers on the long road of developing into a serious national contender for the spring.

"Now's a chance just for us to get great technique, good coaching on the water, take millions of strokes, and just get out there and show what we've got early on," Bartelt said. "The main reason for the fall is to build up that base."