For the 10th straight year, the Tulsa women’s rowing team took home the Lawless Cup, this year hosting Southern Methodist University and the University of Central Oklahoma in Catoosa on Saturday.
The Lawless Cup, which has been going for ten years, was created in honor of TU President Emeritus Dr. Robert Lawless and First Lady Emeritus Marcy Lawless in 2005 to recognize their contributions towards the success of Tulsa’ rowing team. Since the first Cup in 2005, and continuing this year, Tulsa has not only won the Cup, but gone undefeated in every race.
Tulsa’s 2nd Varsity 4+ ‘A’ boat started the regatta off strong with a time of 8:31.5 to beat SMU by 25 seconds. TU’s ‘B’ boat finished the race in third.
In the Varsity 4+ race, Betsy Govig, Emalia Seto, Madeline Oleksiak, Annie Martin and Audrey Brown finished with the top time of 8:03.57 which was close to 12 seconds faster than UCO and 46 seconds faster than SMU.
Head Coach Kevin Harris talked about the Fours after their races on Saturday morning saying, “We made some changes in the Fours after the Knecht Cup and I thought they looked really good today. We’ve traditionally done well in the Fours, but they will be increasingly important as we move toward the end of the season. It was good to see them put together solid races and earn two wins for the program.”
Tulsa’s 2nd and 3rds Varsity 8+ boats finished first and second in their race with times of 7:18.2 and 7:28.8.
“The 2nd Varsity 8+ and 3rd Varsity 8+ had exceptional runs today, Harris said. The way the 3V8 pushed the 2V8 shows that as a team we are all pushing to get faster. It was a great result to finish first and second.”
In the final race Marcia Vidaurri, Maria Gearing, Hannah Vissers, Lauren Vander-Hoeven, Ashley Lane, Hanne Emnett, Sam Tober, Emily Farrar and Jennifer Casson finished with a time of 7:06.6, which was six seconds faster than SMU and 14 seconds ahead of UCO.
Harris said, “The Varsity 8+ really got pushed by SMU in the first 750 meters, but we stayed poised and executed the race plan, which allowed us to break ahead. They did a wonderful job of finishing out their race today to claims the Lawless Cup.”
After the regatta finished Harris talked about the entire day; “I am really pleased with the way we executed the races today. SMU is always tough competition because of the rivalry and we knew UCO, being the No. 2-ranked Division II team in the country, was going to bring their ‘A’ game. Our athletes are coming into their own right now and I am proud of the way things are coming together. We still have a lot of work to do before we race Oklahoma in the Stone Cup and before the American Athletic Conference Championships.”
Their next race is the Stone Cup against Oklahoma.
