Women’s Crew Season Outlook – Ohio State Buckeyes
3/30/1998 12:00:00 AM | Rowing
March 30, 1998
In the coming season, the Buckeyes will be looking for new leadership as the squad will be without the services of 12 non-returning letterwinners. The loss has been compensated by the emergence of certain members of the junior class, who have accepted pivotal leadership roles.
“I was afraid that we were going to have a lull in our third year,” said Head Coach Andy Teitelbaum. “We hit the scene running with a bang our first year. We continued to move forward and got a boat to the NCAAs last year but at the start of this year, it looked like things were going to ebb a little bit. Fortunately the best kids have kind of pulled us along and now some of the other athletes who are in their third year are following suit and starting to step up to the plate.”
During the fall regattas, the team showed drastic improvement and several athletes began to evolve into the leaders that will be neccesary for a strong campaign.
“I’m really pleased with the amount of improvement we’ve shown from September to November,” said Teitelbaum. “We’re pretty much in the middle of the pack and It’s been wonderful to see the team progress in just 10 weeks.”
Teitelbaum’s quest for excellence is something that he hopes will be attained through repetition and the constant development of the older rowers.
“You work every day at it,” he said. “There is definately a group that has taken their rowing to a new level.
“We had some people last year spend the summer at Olympic Seep and Sculling Development camps. That experience has brought them up to speed. and to a new level. This has the quality to pull along the other good athletes that we have on the team.”
Carrie Komar and Tamara Bushdorf are two Buckeyes that have been in the Olympic Development system and are trying to get up to the elite levels of the program. They have taken their rowing skills and their erg scores to the point where they are legitimate candidates for Olympic consideration which has, in turn, been of valuable use to the Buckeye training regemin.
Sophomore Laura Michaels is third on the team erg score wise and by the end of this year Teitelbaum expects her to be ready for a Development Camp.
Katie Buttine spent the summer rowing with the Junior National develpment scullers, and has come in and moved right in to the top boat; competing with some of the best rowers on the team.
“Those kids are setting the pace and the others that are falling in behind them,” said Teitelbaum. “A lot of the juniors and seniors are stepping up.”
The goal for the 1998 campaign is to get a team bid to the NCAAs, or at the very least an eight. The athletes established this goal early in the fall season; a feat that only eight schools in the country will be able to achieve.
“Its a pretty lofty goal,” said Teitelbaum. “But there are certain kids on the team that are making their push to make it happen.”
Teitelbaum expects this kind of leadership to encourage the younger athletes to move further along the learning curve to a new level of intensity.
“Obviously, I think our leadership this year is excellent,” he said. “You either have it or you don’t.”
The captains of the squad this year are Komar and Julie Higgins. Both provide great leadership by example. They have the ability to bring everybody together by encouraging the younger rowers and letting them know the way to progress from the novice to the varsity ranks.
The Buckeyes will miss Shannon Moore and Kim Bredemann who are no longer on the OSU roster.
Moore was last year’s captain and the stroke of the first boat. The graduate went on to row at a senior National Team Development camp over the summer and will be heading out to San Diego in February to train for the 98 national team. Bredemann was the teams strongest rower in terms of pure strength and was an integral part of the varsity eight.
“I believe we have kids that are at the same level of Shannon when she left us last spring,” said Teitelbaum. “By the end of the year, I expect to have even more.”
