The Pioneers hosted the NCRC Invitational Saturday, April 5, at Vancouver Lake (results).

The Pioneers saw big improvements on the women's side. The women's pair won their race.
The Women's Varsity Eight was third in the DIII race, with just a few strokes out of second and much closer to the first place time than at the season-opening regatta.

Men's team had a very good day, with the Men's varsity eight, in their first race this year, finished a strong third. The Men's varsity four was a strong second and the Men's varsity pair was also second.

Comments from Head Coach Sam Taylor:

The Varsity women's squad raced the eight twice, first in the DIII eight race in the morning, finishing 3rd, and again in the Open varsity 8 race in the afternoon, finishing 5th. Our morning race was executed very well; we set out to fix some of the problems from last weekend and had a great start and a great sprint. In the afternoon race we set out to raise the tempo during the body of the piece and weren't quite able to execute in the way we wanted. We'll go back to work this week with a clear focus on what needs work. Our women's pair is very experienced, very relaxed, and they demonstrated that with an solid win today.

The men's squad was able to row the eight for the first time today after missing members due to injury and travel; they just missed out on a close sprint for 2nd behind Humboldt. Their base speed was excellent and we'll take another shot at the Lumberjacks at Covered Bridge. Our men's four had an excellent race as well to finish a strong 2nd.

On the novice side, our novice women's 8 just missed out on qualifying for the final. Both the novice men's and novice women's fours qualified for their finals and finished 6th.

A big thanks from the Lewis & Clark coaching staff go to the referees and volunteers who came out to help us host the regatta. This regatta gets a little bit better every year and it's largely due to the tremendous help we're able to muster from the Lewis & Clark community.