Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Women's Rowing Journal - Jacqueline McKeone
4/28/2010 8:00:00 AM | Women's Rowing
April 28, 2010
Last week before the Princeton race I told my family, who were going to be there, that it was going to be a very good race. However, I also told them not to expect a win. I knew that my boat was competitive, but I also realized that Princeton is ranked within the top-five teams in the nation. Not only that, but we had two novices in our boat, while Princeton had sophomores in theirs.
My boat and I went into the race telling ourselves that even if we were behind we were going to still try and have our best race yet. We were going to stay controlled, relaxed, and most importantly, stay on the press. Within the first 10 strokes we were behind to all three crews. However, during our lengthen strokes we gained about half a boat length on Dartmouth. I told the rest of the boat that we were walking, and for the first time realized that winning this race was actually a possibility. After we started walking through Dartmouth we didn't stop. Soon I was at the coxswain of Penn and then eventually at the same spot on Princeton. As we kept gaining seats, the race started to fly by. Before I knew, I could see the buoys changing color and called for my rowers to bring the pressure and power up. I told them to empty their tanks. Give it everything they had. They were beating three Ivy league schools and approaching that line with power. Princeton, as well as Penn, started to take some of those seats we gained back, but my crew stayed out in front. We had taken the lead and were not going to give it up. My rowers stayed on top of every stroke and crossed the finish line two seconds in front of Princeton. None of us could comprehend what we had just done. Some of the rowers actually asked if that just happened. However, I was speechless. It was by far the best race I've ever been in. Its hard to come out of something like that saying that it wasn't a prefect race, but it wasn't. We know what we have to work on, and all ready started to fix our problems. I know that my boat and the team as a whole can get faster, and we're going to keep on working on it, so that every race in the future feels even better then the last.
This week coming up is another big race. We have a few boats we have never raced before, as well as many that we have already been up against. It's not going to be an easy race for any of Bucknell's boats. We're going to have to go after it just as hard as we did at Princeton.
- Jacqueline McKeone '13
