ARCATA – Humboldt State crew is preparing for another sizable regatta this week as it makes another trip north, this time to Eugene, Ore., for the Covered Bridge Regatta on Dexter Lake.
 
“It's a regatta that has transformed itself from a little one-day event into a two-day event,” said HSU head coach Robin Meiggs. “It's a huge juniors regatta, so there will probably be around 600 high school students running around amongst the collegiate programs.”
 
All events raced in this weekend's regatta will be raced as finals, giving the crew in each boat one shot at racing its hardest. The Lumberjacks will be trying out a new situation, splitting the second novice eight into novice four A and B.
 
“I think what we hope to see as we break up the second novice eight and put them into fours is that it will give us a better idea of what we need to do for championships. Championships is about fielding crews that will be fast in all of the events,” said Meiggs.
 
The women's 2V8 will be Humboldt State's first race on Saturday, scheduled for 9:40 a.m. HSU will compete in the women's V8, novice 4 (A and B), V4, 2V4 and the novice 8 races. The Jacks will see Division II rivals Western Washington and Seattle Pacific University, along with the University of Portland and Seattle University, among others.
 
“We have an opportunity to race Western to see if we're making any improvements in our racing and our race plan,” Meiggs said.  “I think for us it's just trying to figure out how to garner more boat speed. That comes down to training, but more than anything being able to execute that race plan and hit the split times that you're supposed to be hitting for each of the 500s. In our racing we've been able to come off the line first this year versus traditionally coming off the line last.”
 
Although the regatta is a two-day event, Humboldt State will only compete in races on Saturday.
 
“We'll be racing a lot of schools we've raced already, but in two weeks when we go to the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships (WIRA), we'll see them all. One of our goals was to make a run for WIRA Championships this year and to defend our title as regional champions. So there's a lot at play. When you have this many people on the team, and you're rowing so many different events that move toward a cumulative point trophy, everybody has to rise up and do well.”