Hawkeyes host Head of the Iowa rowing event in Iowa City

Despite early morning showers and cool temperatures, hundreds of devoted rowing fans traveled to Iowa City's Lower City Park to watch this year's Head of the Iowa regatta unfold along a 2.5 mile stretch the Iowa River.

The third and final regatta  for the UI Women's rowing team this fall, Sunday's competition included  women's teams from the University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, University of Colorado, Drake and Creighton.

"The Big Ten  is a pretty competitive conference," UI women's rowing Head Coach Mandi Kowal said. "We wanted to go into [Sunday's] races with intensity like we did at Oklahoma [earlier this month]."

Coming off a strong performance at the Head of the Rock regatta in Rockford on Oct.9, the UI women say their performance during Sunday's competition did not go as planned.

"We wanted to make it the best race of the [fall] season," UI Junior Louise Bensz, of Australia, said. "We would have liked to have been faster than we were."

UI Sophomore Annemarie Bernhard agreed, saying that the "A" women struggled to recover after a changing wind pattern slowed them down along the Iowa River bend near the P. Sue Beckwith M.D. boathouse, finishing third in the event.

"We should have had the home course advantage -- we practice out here everyday," she said. "It [the race] just didn't go as we had planned."

The UI women's "B" and "C" rowers placed tenth and 12th, respectively, during the same event.

Kowal says that although she was not completely satisfied by how the varsity eights race panned out, the day did have several highlights including several top six finishes during afternoon races.

"Our fours had a really nice race -- they did what they've been working on and it paid off," Kowal said. "They went for a nice big push with the stroke and when they came down I thought, wow, they're really rowing well!"

Now that the fall portion of the rowing season has come to a close, Kowal says that the team will be spending much of their time at the boathouse, mastering the fundamentals of their rowing style and working on becoming an even closer-knit team.

"Overall we want to row beyond 'who we are' and want to let our minds go to a place where we can outdo our previous numbers," she said. "But we'd like to be in the top 20 this spring."

For full race results from Sunday's regatta, visit

Row2K.