The Alabama women’s rowing team is traveling to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to compete in the Conference USA Championship Saturdaymorning. The winning team will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships.

Eleven teams will take to the water at 8 a.m., with races running throughout the day.

Alabama coach Larry Davis said that despite the lack of a set regular Conference USA schedule, the Crimson Tide has been able to see many of their opponents throughout the season., with the early exposure highlighting some key issues for the Alabama team.

“We’ve had a chance to get a feel for where they are and where we were, and one of the things we saw earlier in the year was that our speed was not up to snuff,” Davis said. “We were making progress, but we weren’t there.”

Drawing off of this observation, Davis said Alabama has spent a large part of their spring season working on specific aspects of their race to allow the team to increase that speed which was once lacking.

“One of the goals we had over the spring was to keep working on things that are going to get us to where we are going to be in the thick of things,” Davis said. “I think what we’ve accomplished, especially in the last four weeks, is that we’ve made really good progress on that, and the speed we’re showing will put us in the hunt.”

While the Alabama team isn’t expecting to take the top spot in the race, they are focusing on finishing in the top half of the talented teams and to continue the progression they started this spring.

Junior Logan O’Neil said she and her team are looking forward to competing and being able to attain this goal while displaying the improvements they have worked so hard for all season.

“I think that’s great goal to go after and we’re really looking forward to competing [Saturday] morning to attain that goal,” O’Neil said. “If we are in the top half we’ll advance to grand finals and that has been a huge goal across all boats.”

Throughout the season, Davis and his staff have worked on getting the team to row within themselves and toughen their mental game, working to no longer allow their opponents to intimidate and impact their races.

“We want to go out and race at the level we’re ready to race at, and not let someone else take the wind out of our sails. Each time we’ve raced this spring, we’ve been able to do that,” Davis said. “One of the things we try to get the team to learn is nobody impacts our boat speed except for us.”

Davis also said this crew team is the hungriest he has seen compete for the Crimson Tide, and O’Neil said she feels the same when looking at her teammates.

“The desire on this team this spring season is at the all time high that I’ve seen it,” she said. “It’s such a great thing to see, and we’re hoping this momentum we’ve built will carry over into summer and into the fall and propel us into our first season in the new boathouse in the fall and make it a great season.”