By Chris McCree
Sports Editor

Led by a gold-medal performance by the second varsity eight boat, the women’s rowing team came away with three top-two finishes by its varsity boats at the Knecht Cup on Sunday in Cherry Hill, N.J. The Bison’s two freshmen boats also came away with a pair of top-two finishes during the final day of action.

“I think our team performed really well this weekend against some tough competition,” Emily Gladstone ’13 said. “The 1V8 and 2V8’s grand finals were very close races and it gives us some great experience against solid competition going into our Patriot League Championship in 2 weeks.”

Facing intense competition from the Duke and Boston College boats, the Bison second varsity eight boat earned its first gold at the Knecht Cup in program history. Finishing in a time of 6:45.82, the Orange and Blue finished ahead of the Blue Devils and Golden Eagles by .97 seconds and 2.16 seconds respectively.

The top varsity eight boat fell in a close race to Duke by just over a second.  In the race, the Bison and Blue Devils boats completely blew away the rest of the field with the third-place boat from Buffalo finishing almost eight seconds off the pace.

In the lightweight race, the Orange and Blue added another silver to their collection, finishing behind Wisconsin by less than three seconds. Highlighting the day for the lightweight crew was the Bison’s nine-second victory over third-place Princeton, a team that the Orange and Blue had never beaten during the regular season until last week.

Capping off the day for the Bison were two strong performances by their freshmen eight and freshmen four boats. The freshmen eight managed to take the gold over Lehigh by nearly more than seven seconds, while the freshmen four finished second to Pittsburgh.

This weekend the Orange and Blue will not race, but will turn their attention to an important weekend at the end of April. On April 28, the Bison head to the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Championship in Lewisberry, Pa. before heading back to Cherry Hill for Patriot League Championships on April 29.