The Michigan rowers may have claimed that the fall season doesn"t mean much compared to the spring, but they didn"t act like it yesterday at the Head of the Charles regatta in Boston. Top finishes in both the championship eight and the cchampionship four races showed that the team is ready and willing to compete, regardless of the time of year.

In front of thousands of spectators, the Wolverines faced top rowing teams from around the nation in what many consider the biggest rowing regatta of the year. National crews such as the U.S. Rowing team joined the talented field of collegiate teams like Princeton, Southern California and Yale. Overall, Michigan raced well and finished fifth in the championship fours and sixth in the championship eights.

"We"re right in there and that"s where we want to be," Michigan coach Mark Rothstein said.

The varsity four boat placed fifth out of 31 boats overall and turned in the top collegiate time of 18:44.46. In the women"s championship eights, Michigan placed sixth overall in a field of 53 boats and was fourth among collegiate teams, behind Princeton, Ohio State and Yale. Rothstein said he was very pleased with his team"s performance Sunday.

"I thought our coxswains steered really well today, even though this is a difficult course to navigate," Rothstein said. "I was pleased with both boats. We still have a lot of technical work to do, and we need to row more efficiently and keep training hard."

Christina Meyer, a senior who rowed in the eight boat yesterday, described the race as "very aggressive," and said the team is still in the process of arranging and perfecting lineups.

"We haven"t practiced a whole lot in our line up that we used today," Meyer said. "We are still getting used to each other. Usually during the fall the coaches assign random lineups for each race. This is the one race where the coaches choose a lineup the week before and we actually practice together before we race."

The excitement of the race the largest and most-attended event Michigan participates in each year also factored into the team"s performance.

"It created a new kind of dynamic," Meyer said. "There was a lot of excitement and it was a little bit distracting. But I think we got through that."

"It"s an amazing venue and the excitement is really motivating, as long as you keep your focus," said senior Jennifer Bryant, who was in the varsity four boat. The four boat placed extremely well despite three rowers who were competing in the Head of the Charles regatta for Michigan for the first time.

"We raced really solidly today," Bryant said. "This is one of the best races we"ve had this year."

The Wolverines will work to improve on their strong performance yesterday through the rest of the fall season.

Rothstein agreed that the team raced well at the Head of the Charles, but was reluctant to use those results as an accurate predictor for the rest of Michigan"s season. The format of the race, in which the teams race against the clock and not against each other, didn"t allow the team to get a good chance to size up its other opponents.

"Some crews do well here in the fall, then not so good in the spring, and vice versa," Rothstein said. "It"s too early to tell. The only thing I can say is that there are a lot of crews here that could beat us, but there"s no one that"s unbeatable. That"s a good thing."

Next up for Michigan is the Head of the Elk competition in Elkhart, Ind. this coming Sunday.