RALEIGH, N.C. - Old Dominion women’s rowing finished competing at the 2026 Lake Wheeler Invitational on Sunday. ODU competed in nine races across two days at the regatta hosted by North Carolina and Duke.
“The Lake Wheeler Invitational was a good regatta to go to for us,” said ODU head coach Brian Conley. “I know we will definitely return. We had to shift line-ups around amongst the three rounds of racing as we are trying to manage some injuries. I think the athletes that moved into new boats stepped up when they needed to. We will spend the next three weeks working on preparation, consistency, and execution for the BIG 12 Championship.”
The Monarchs’ V4+ had their first race in the eighth event on Friday. North Carolina finished in first with a time of 7:20.67 in front of Miami’s time of 7:22.73 in second place. SMU (7:28.50) placed third, Clemson (7:33.17) finished in fourth, West Virginia (7:47.30) came in fifth, and Lehigh (7:59.55) and Old Dominion (8:04.50) finished sixth and seventh, respectively.
The Silver and Blue’s 2V8+ finished in sixth in the team’s second race of the afternoon. ODU’s finish time of 7:01.84 was enough to beat out West Virginia’s time of 7:15.59, but the Monarchs couldn’t finish ahead of Lehigh in fifth place. The Mountain Hawks edged the Monarchs by less than a second with a time of 7:01.15. Miami (6:33.99) grabbed first place, North Carolina finished in second (6:38.35), SMU (6:43.86) took third, and Clemson (6:48.54) placed fourth.
Old Dominion’s best finish of the weekend came in event #14 with the 1V8+’s. ODU finished in fifth with a time of 6:54.15. Miami (6:24.62) took home first place, North Carolina (6:27.61) placed second, Clemson (6:27.75) grabbed third, SMU (6:33.49) finished fourth, and West Virginia (6:57.98) and Lehigh (6:58.92) placed sixth and seventh, respectively.
The rest of the regatta would not go in the Monarchs’ favor with all six of the final races resulting in last place finishes. ODU’s V4+ boat finished with a time of 8:34.40 and the 2V8+’s logged a time of 7:15.71. The 1V8+’s (7:06.60) were less than half of a second off of edging out Lehigh (7:06.43) for sixth place, while the V4+’s (8:14.19) couldn’t catch up to fifth place. ODU finished with a time of 7:13.16 in the second 2V8+ race of the regatta and the 1V8+’s logged a time of 6:54.72 in the team’s final race.
UP NEXT:
The Silver and Blue will be in Sarasota, Florida on May 15-17 for the BIG 12 Championship in Nathan Benderson Park.