The hunt for the NCAA Championships continues as Washington State rowing heads to Spokane on Saturday for the Head of the Spokane regatta.

The Cougars are looking for their fifth trip to the NCAA championships in six years. Fall races help to set the team up for the competitive spring season.

“The fall season is super important, especially from a cardio standpoint,” senior Savannah Davison said. “We have to put in so many hours of just working out because in the spring we don’t have the time to do that. We are building up our base for the spring season in the fall.”

Head Coach Jane LaRiviere outlines the goals of the fall regattas are “to build on what we have been doing. To increase our fitness and to increase our speed and set ourselves up to have a motivating winter.”

The Cougars will race with three varsity eight-boats in with their main competition being Gonzaga’s boats. The 5-killometer race will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday at the Gonzaga Boathouse.

“It’s a local event for us. It’s fun to be able just drive an hour and a half up the road and be able to rig up and row,” LaRiviere said. “We usually have a lot of parents, friends and supporters that come out so it is usually a really fun event.”

After the Head of the Spokane, WSU will be heading to the west side to race against other Pac-12 teams at the Head of the Lake to close the fall season.

“Pend Orielle was really just a training exercise,” Coach LaRiviere said. “Our top kids were in pairs and fours, and our top kids will be in the eight this time around. It will be good to get everybody together and have a good run through before Head of the Lake which is where we will see a lot more Pac-12 competition.”

With only two regattas left before the end of the fall season, the team and coaches are using the fall season as another steppingstone to nationals.

“The coaches have really taken a different approach this year. We are doing a lot more stairs, and the workload is much more intense,” senior Kellen Srb said. “A lot of the girls have taken the initiative to do extra workouts on our own.  We are really pushing for the whole team to come together as a family and do the extra work now … as betterment to the team and ourselves.”