The Iowa rowing team will hold its first official home meet in 2022 this Friday at Lake MacBride. The Hawkeyes will have their home opener in their final regular season regatta.

“It will be nice to finally be home,” head coach Jeff Garbutt said. “It will be nice to sleep in our own beds.”

Iowa was slated to have two regular season regattas in 2022. But the Hawkeyes’ regatta on April 23 was canceled because of inclement weather. Instead, Iowa, Drake, Michigan State, Old Dominion, and Tulsa scrimmaged that day.

“We were disappointed not to race the 2,000-meter,” Garbutt said. “We were still given the opportunity to scrimmage and compete against some teams. It was still great to work with a lot of friendly coaches and learn from it.”

The regatta, dubbed the Big Ten/Pac-12 Challenge will start on Friday morning at 7:30 a.m. at Lake MacBride. The Hawkeyes will compete against multiple schools in the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association rankings. The Hawkeyes aren’t ranked, but they are receiving votes in the CRCA poll.

No. 10 Southern California and No. 19 Oregon State made the trek to Iowa City, as well as Wisconsin, Minnesota and Central Florida.

“We are super excited coming into this weekend,” Garbutt said. “There are a couple of Pac-12 teams racing against us this weekend. It is a big deal for teams to travel all the way to Iowa to compete against us. We are just looking to keep progressing to our final goals this season.”

This will be the first home event for the Hawkeyes in over a year. Iowa last hosted a regatta on April 24, 2021. The Hawkeyes saw success in their home races, as the Second Novice Eight boat won its race, and Iowa’s First Varsity Four and First Varsity Eight placed second.

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Iowa’s sole home meet of the season will also serve as its final tune-up before the Big Ten Championships in Indianapolis on May 15. The Hawkeyes will compete at the Indianapolis Rowing Center against seven other conference teams.

“We are looking to keep taking the season one race at a time,” Garbutt said. “The Big Ten Championships is our end goal, but the most important race right now is tomorrow morning when we start the day against USC and UCF and then the next race that day.”

The Hawkeyes will put the First Varsity Eight, Second Varsity Eight, First Novice Eight, Second Novice Eight, First Varsity Four, and Second Varsity Four on the water on Friday. The day will end with an award ceremony.

“Big Tens is coming very soon,” Garbutt said. “We are going to have to handle business this weekend to achieve our overall year goal at Big Tens.”