Fighting Illini Finish Winter Training with Impressive Finish at Chicago Indoor

The rowers from the University of Illinois rowed well in their final indoor meet of the season. The day started well with Women's Coach Samantha Polak winning the Open Lightweight Women's Race, breaking the 19-29 year old age category Women's Lightweight record for the Chicago Indoor. Samantha was followed by three of her athletes (Danielle Saubert, Meridith Kisting, and Melissa Crawford) in the Collegiate Novice Women's race. Danielle handily won the event with a time of 7:10 setting a new person, team, and Chicago Indoor record for Novice Collegiate Women. Teammate Meridith came in 5th, while Melissa came in 9th out of 14th in her first race. All three achieved personal records. Last up for the women was Julia Briscoe in the Collegiate Novice Lightweight Women, who rowed her way into a 4th place finish with a very well controlled piece, also achieving a personal record.On the men's side, Nick Van Antwerp was looking to go undefeated this season and was joined by 7 of his teammates in the Collegiate Novice Men's category. Nick managed a come from behind win in his heat, but his victory was short lived as he was displaced by the winner of the second heat. Nevertheless, Nick set a new team record of 6:35 for 2km. He was followed by teammates Ray Urban, and Steve Smith in 8th and 9th, Cameron Skelding in 11th, and Ben Feitch in 13th. Leonel Ocampo, Boyi Guo, and Connor Unitas claimed 20th, 22nd, and 23rd respectively out of 24. The varsity men took to the machines next, lead by team captain Chris Marr who rowed into an 11th place finish behind a dominant Michigan State crew. Rudi Bredemeier shattered his record to break 7-minutes for the 2km take 14th place. Eric Xia rounded out the event in 20th place. In the Collegiate Lightweight Men, Mark Kennedy broke his personal record by over 10 seconds to claim 22nd.Last up were the relay challenges. On the women's side, Illinois and U. Chicago battled back and forth for the lead. Sam Polak opened up a lead from the start, while the next three fought to maintain the lead. Anchor Danielle Saubert brought it home with a dominant finish to beat out U. Chicago by 2.6 seconds. They were pushed to second place by the Rowfit Chicago team in the second heat, but still achieved a record finish for the Illini Women. The men's team was up against several university crews including two teams from Michigan State. While Michigan's first crew controlled the piece, the Illini managed to upset their 1-2 finish by beating out the second team in the final piece. All men pulled excellent pieces to take second.Thank you to all parents and alumni who came out today to cheer on and support the athletes. Full race results will be posted soon on our site, official results are available at the Chicago Indoor website.