MELBOURNE, Fla. (March 12) -- The UConn women's rowing varsity eight, junior varsity eight and novice eight ended a week of training with a scrimmage against Syracuse on Saturday.

The scrimmage consisted of several two minute pieces, at various stroke ratings. In the junior varsity eight and the novice eight, Syracuse defeated UConn in each piece. The UConn varsity eight beat Syracuse in two out of six pieces.

Earlier in the trip, the UConn varsity four placed second in the Rollins Invitational. They are pictured to the left: Christina Cotter, Ursula Henwood, Abbey Off, Jodi Hope and Alison Elmo.

One of the UConn novice boats consists of Kate Jureller, Kim Raetz, Whitney Peterson and Allyson Zoppa. They are pictured in the middle photo. The bottom photo is also a novice boat with Monica Parker, Arielle Shiely, Caitlin Meisinger and Lauren Chan.

"Syracuse dominates the BIG EAST each year," says UConn head coach Jen Sanford-Wendry. "Although the pieces were only two minutes, I was happy to see that we were able to be competitive with Syracuse across the board. It was a good experience for each boat to be in different racing scenarios, and it gave us the opportunity to see how we would handle various stroke rates and conditions."

UConn races St. Joseph's University next on Fri., March 25 at 10 a.m. in Philadelphia.