There is nothing gentle about how the Ohio State women’s rowing team oars.

Tomorrow the Buckeyes will compete in the Speakmon Head Race in Columbus to kick off their season. The race will consist of about 40 to 50 boats that start every 10 seconds, and are timed over three miles.

Fall races do not count toward the team’s regular season record, but are a good way for the team to mix up their normal practice routines and get some competitive juices flowing.

“The results in fall usually don’t predict much about our actual season in the spring, but it is still important to look for competition and challenge,” junior Franziska Schubert said.

The Buckeyes are sending three Varsity 8 boats on the water along with five pair boats. Normally, the first Varsity 8 boat has the strongest rowers, but OSU coach Andy Teitelbaum has a different strategy this fall.

“What we decided to do on Saturday is take our top 16 rowers, or what we figure to be our top 16 rowers right now, and spread them out evenly amongst the top two boats,” Teitelbaum said.

Instead of Ohio State A being blazing fast, Teitelbaum said he thinks it might work to the Buckeyes’ advantage to have two fast boats, both of them finishing high enough for the team to get enough points to win.

The pair boats do not run races in the regular-season spring competition, but Teitelbaum said they are good boats to train in. The fall is an opportunity to let them get raced.

“Racing in pairs gives you variety as well as good preparation for the eight,” senior Tatiana Grigorieva said.

In the past, the fall races have brought in high finishes for the Buckeyes. Teitelbaum wants to improve his team in the spring rather than worrying so much about the fall, so he is having his team focus more on its development rather than competing in a lot of races now.

“We’ve been a strong crew in the fall as well as the spring in the past, but we would like to be stronger in the spring than in the past. So if that means sacrificing some hardware in the fall, then we’ll do that,” Teitelbaum said.

Three years ago the Buckeyes finished fourth in the NCAA, two years ago they finished fifth and last year they finished eighth. The team has set high goals of winning the Big Ten Conference championship as well as getting three boats into the Grand Finals of the NCAA tournament with a chance to win. Though fall racing is not necessarily an indicator of how the team will do in the spring, Grigorieva still feels it is important.

“Fall races gives us confidence in our practice. We can compete with each other in a real race, rather than just during practice. Races are always fun,” she said.

The Buckeyes will compete in one other fall race on Nov. 16 in Charlottesville, VA in the Rivanna Romp. Regular season officially starts March 27 against Princeton and Brown in Princeton, NJ.