FAIRFAX STATION, VA – The Jacksonville Men's Rowing team competed on Sunday in what was the first ever Occoquan River Invitational, where they ran three Varsity 8 boats across six races. It was a challenging day of racing for the 'Phins as they battled a grouping of high-level ranked opponents amongst a strong headwind and choppy water.

JU was joined in the competition by eight other schools including hosts #12 Navy, #21 Holy Cross, #16 Drexel, Marietta, #23 Georgetown, St Joseph's, Hobart, and Florida Tech.

Beginning in the morning at 10:30 am, Jacksonville was able to post times of 7:00.8, 6:55.2, and 8:07.3 in the First, Second and Third Varsity 8 races respectively. Although they were able to post a quick time in the 2V8, none of their times were good for better than second to last place.

Moving on to the afternoon finals, Jacksonville continued to struggle slightly as they posted slower times in each of the three final V8 races, while still battling through an energy-draining headwind.

The Dolphins were however able to edge out St. Joe's in the First Varsity 8 final by 14 seconds, and just narrowly missed out on third place to Marietta by less than two seconds.

In the second Varsity 8 final, Jacksonville was neck and neck with Hobart throughout the entire race just missing out on second place to the Statesmen by 1.9 seconds, something that Head Coach Preston Weinard was pleased with.

"I want to highlight the Second Varsity 8 in their final, they were able to race Hobart neck and neck who is an annually fast team and they're well coached and well trained, and we were able to go toe to toe with them for just about the entire 2k, so that was pretty cool to see that race," said Weinard.

Weinard continued on to recap the entire day as a net positive for the Dolphins who now have many learning points that they can take with them into next weekend's SIRA regatta.

"I think we earned our results based on our performance and there are things that all three boats can work on to see better results… it was a big learning day overall so we're taking that in stride. You can look at the results and say they're good or bad, but if you can walk away from the race course saying that we did our best, but we can learn, or that we didn't do our best and can still learn from it, that's what is important."

"I think that the competition was great, and the sportsmanship was awesome with the other teams, it's always good to see at the end of the regatta the teams exchanging shirts and having a good time with each other which is always a good thing, and a very special facet of rowing. But overall, it was a solid day, and I am looking forward to seeing how we can make changes in a quick turnaround between this race and SIRA, so we want to figure out what we can take from today and apply it over the next three days in order to make next Friday better, and I think that's what the focus is now," stated Weinard.

The Dolphins will now head to that mentioned SIRA regatta for their next race which will take place over two days on both Friday, April 16, and Saturday, April 17.

For the full results and times from the Occoquan River Invitational please visit the links below.

RESULTS

Morning Racing Results: Click Here

Afternoon Racing Results: Click Here