BUFFALO, N.Y. – The Drake University rowing team makes its first-ever trip to Buffalo, N.Y. for the Black Rock Cup Sunday hosted by Canisius College at the West Side Rowing Club. The Bulldogs will compete against fellow Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference members, the host Griffins and Robert Morris as well as Rochester Institute of Technology.
"We're very excited to see conference competition since we haven't raced any conference teams since spring break training," said head coach
Charlie DiSilvestro. "It will be good to see how we stack up with two really good conference teams. With our poor water conditions, back home we haven't been able to row our four lineup, so they need to get a feel of that boat. We will have two good practices to get some water time. The other two boats need to continue to feel good about coming together as a boat."
Drake will look to build off its success from last weekend when it won four out of five races at the Illinois Collegiate Rowing Invitational in Farmer City, Ill. and claimed the women's overall points title.
"It's always fun to race in new places on new bodies of water," DiSilvestro said. "We need to take what we worked on this past week and build on the success from Illinois. It's going to be much tougher competition but we're excited for a good weekend of racing in a new place."
Following its trip to Buffalo, Drake will have a break before it travels back east to the 2018 MAAC Championship, May 13, in Cherry Hill, N.J. The winner of the MAAC Championship receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
BLACK ROCK CUP SCHEDULE
8 a.m. – V8 Eight
8:20 a.m. – 2nd V8 Eight
8:40 a.m. – V4 Four
Break for Boat dedication
10:00 a.m. – V8 (Finals)
10:20 a.m. – 2nd V8 (Finals)
10:40 a.m. – V4 (Finals)
Drake Tentative Lineups for Black Rock Cup
V8 - Rambhia (cox), Rebischke, Frantik, Gowans, Konopacki, Abrams, Thacker, Rundquist, Packer
2V8 - Killian (cox), McNeely, Bascio, Shipley, Dahlstrom, Hunter, Peterson, Janes, Smith
V4 - Prien (cox), Rimes, Peterson, Finnell, Masterson
