REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – The No. 14 Stanford men’s rowing team earned a victory over No. 11 Wisconsin in the varsity eight to close out the Pac-12 Challenge at Redwood Shores.
The Cardinal varsity eight finished the weekend with wins over Wisconsin and No. 17 Oregon State to give them four straight wins over the last two weekends.
“We made a lot of improvements this week and were able to improve our speed and drop our time by about 10 seconds,” said sophomore stroke seat Ryan Hails. “It led to some really nice results this weekend.”
Stanford pulled ahead early on and maintained the advantage throughout, finishing with a time of 5:51.3. The time was 3.5 seconds faster than the Badgers.
“We came together as eight guys and for the first time from the very start we moved as eight,” said Hails. “Synching up gave us a lot of speed. We are looking forward to getting back out there this week because we know we still have speed to gain.”
The 2V8 and 3V8 is also still trying to find the right mix of guys to find that maximum speed. The Badgers won the 2V8 by 8.5 seconds over Stanford, which finished in 6:08.4. The Wisconsin 3V8 posted a faster time than its second varsity eight and ran away with the race. Stanford posted a time of 6:17.0.
After the weekend’s races had concluded, Stanford head coach Craig Amerkhanian held a boat christening ceremony in honor of the donations made by Al, Nancy and Alex Osborne. The
“Osborne” is named after Alex, a walk-on who worked his way up to becoming an Olympian for the U.S. 4x in 2012. Alex graduated in 2009 with an economics degree. He is currently the head of customer acquisition for Sapho, an enterprise application infrastructure company.
“We were fortunate to get Alex (Osborne) as a walk-on,” said head coach Craig Amerkhanian. “Alex and Mark Murphy came to Stanford together and were the cornerstones of the renaissance of Stanford Crew.”
Al and Nancy have been tremendous supporters of the Stanford men’s rowing program since their son Alex was a member of the Cardinal crew.
“Al and Nancy gave the first scholarship to Stanford men’s crew,” said Amerkhanian. “They saw what their son was going through and believed in the culture. They believe in potential, learning and growth.”
Stanford will be off next weekend before wrapping up the regular season on Saturday, May 2 with the Big Row vs. Cal at Redwood Shores.
Pac-12 Challenge
Redwood Shores Lagoon
Redwood City, Calif.
April 19, 2015
Results
Varsity Eight
1. Stanford – 5:51.3
2. Wisconsin – 5:54.8
Second Varsity Eight
1. Wisconsin – 5:59.9
2. Stanford – 6:08.4
Third Varsity Eight
1. Wisconsin – 5:55.1
2. Stanford – 6:17.0
Lineups
Varsity Eight
Coxswain – Nathalie Weiss
Stroke – Ryan Hails
7 – Allen Reitz
6 – Jovanni Stefani
5 – Kaess Smit
4 – Ryan O’Rourke
3 – Will Spencer
2 – Sean-Patrick Sullivan
Bow – Scott Roycroft
Second Varsity Eight
Coxswain – Ardsley Sanders
Stroke – Max Freundlich
7 – Misha Wilcockson
6 – Peter Wood
5 – Landon Alecxih
4 - Andrew Terajewicz
3 – Nico Cserepy
2 – Erik Holmvik
Bow – John Cirenza
Third Varsity Eight
Coxswain – Greg Wolk
Stroke – Kendall Fagan
7 – Wills McMahon
6 – Andrew Merrilees Paiva
5 – Max Skolds
4 – Brendan Larkin
3 – Jim Grace
2 – Matthew Park
Bow – Karl Wessendorf