Coach Bohrer Interview | Friday's Results

West Windsor, N.J. - The Boston University men's rowing team advanced all four boats to the semifinals in a successful day 1 of racing at the 114th IRA National Championship Regatta on Mercer Lake.

BU's 2V and 3V boats both advanced directly to the semifinals after finishing in the top two of their morning heat races while BU's V8 and V4 advanced after competing in the afternoon repechage races.

Racing in the first race of the day, the Terriers' V8, coxed by senior Maggie Read and stroked by sophomore Max Ponsen, finished fourth in its heat with a time of 5:49.87, behind Yale (5:44.56), Navy (5:47.17) and Northeastern (5:48.34) and moved on to the afternoon repechage.

Needing to win its repechage race that included No. 7 seed Cornell to advance, the No. 8 seeded 1V delivered in a big way. The Terriers and Big Red battled for the lead from the get go and pulled away from Oregon State and Temple early. Cornell held a slight lead at 500 meters but BU caught and passed Cornell at the 1000 meter mark. BU continued to pour it on over the second half of the race and Cornell had no answer. The BU 1V opened a full-length lead with 100 meters to go and won by open water with a time of 5:45.89 to advance to Saturday's semifinals. Cornell was second (5:48.94) while Oregon State (5:54.8) was third and Temple (6:13.44) fourth.

"Our goal was to get everyone to the semifinals and the 2V and 3V both rowed really nice races to move forward," said men's head rowing coach Thomas Bohrer. "The 1V, we had to do it the hard way. I think we came out a little too relaxed in the morning and had to come back in the afternoon, less than four hours later and we drew a tough rep. Cornell beat us at Eastern Sprints and they are really good team. We knew we would have to go out and have one of our best races just to get to the semis and I think our guys really did a superb job."

The Terriers' second varsity eight boat advanced directly to the semifinals with a strong second-place finish in its morning heat race. The 2V, coxed by sophomore MacKenzie Hart and stroked by sophomore Jacob Barker, pulled away early beside Princeton and opened up a full-length lead over Navy and Syracuse over the first 500 meters. The 2V didn't look back and cruised to a second-place finish with a time of 5:55.6, behind winner Princeton (5:53.83) and ahead of Navy (6:02.76) and Syracuse (6:11.36) to advance.

In one of the most exciting races of the morning, BU's third varsity eight boat finished second in its heat race to also advance directly to the semis. Coxed by sophomore Justin Goucher and stroked by freshman Paul Giroux, BU aggressively opened the race and pulled out to an early three-seat lead ahead of Washington and Cornell. Washington caught BU and pulled ahead around the 1000 meter mark and the race was on for second between BU and Cornell. Cornell pulled even with BU with 500 to go but the Terriers answered down the stretch and pulled ahead of Cornell to take second place. Race-winner Washington finished with a time of 5:53.97 while BU was second (5:55.79) and Cornell third (5:56.76). Oregon State (6:09.39) and Syracuse (6:15.04) finished fourth and fifth respectively.

BU's varsity four boat finished 2nd in its heat race behind Wisconsin and needed to compete in the repechage to advance to the semis. Needing a top-two performance in the repechage, the 4V came through with a strong performance. Coxed by freshman Sean Dooling and stroked by sophomore Riley Overfield, the V4 finished second with a time of 6:48.0, behind race-winner Princeton (6:42.99) but well ahead of Yale (6:58.69), Temple (7:01.78), Milwaukee (7:04.75) and Oklahoma (7:08.5) to advance to the semis.

Friday's performance was the fifth time in the last eight years under head coach Thomas Bohrer that BU advanced all four of its boats to the IRA semis.

IRA racing will continue on Saturday with the men's varsity eight semifinals beginning at 9:18 a.m. No. 8 seeded BU will race in the first V8 semi against No. 1 Yale, No. 3 Princeton, No. 10 Columbia and No. 11 Penn, with the top three boats advancing to the grand finals.