58 // VARSITY May 15, 2014
W
hen making the daunting transition
from life at home to life on a major college
campus, many University of Wisconsin
freshmen welcome the sight of a familiar hometown
acquaintance. For UW first-years James and Sarah
Lueken, finding such a familiar face is easy; it in-
volves only a walk to Porter Boathouse.
Twin siblings James and Sarah Lueken share not
only a last name and a college campus; they also
share a mutual interest in the sport of rowing. James
is currently a freshman on the UW men's rowing
team, while Sarah competes with the women's team.
In this year's Big Ten Double Dual on April 12,
Sarah rowed with the UW women's second nov-
ice eight squad. After falling to Michigan State in
the first round of races, Wisconsin's second novice
eights battled back to win a nail-biter against Michi-
gan, crossing the line exactly one second before the
Wolverines. Lueken is now stroking the first novice
eight, a boat she helped to defeat Minnesota earlier
this month to keep hold of "The Hammer," which
goes to the novice eight dual race winner between
the schools.
"From the get-go, she always been a really hard
worker," women's novice openweight coach Nancy
Larocque said. "She's one of the smallest girls in that
boat, but she is a super-aggressive racer. They are
both stroking the freshman boats, which is kind of
funny. They are both good athletes. Sarah has a good
head on her shoulders and she just has really good
racing skills. She is leading that boat really well right
now. She's really scrappy and she's tough and the
girls really respect her."
James has already competed for UW as well, as he
rowed with the men's novice eight boat in last fall's
Head of the Iowa and this year's Stanford Invita-
tional on April 18 and 19, where the UW freshmen
defeated crews from Stanford and Oregon State. And
not surprisingly, because of their brother-sister re-
lationship, men's novice coach Simon Carcagno de-
scribes James in much the same way as his sister.
"He is a fierce competitor. He's the No. 1 guy on
the erg on our freshman team. He's really led the
group pretty effectively right from the beginning of
the year. He's naturally gifted. He's not the smooth-
est rower, but he's the most aggressive guy. Every-
body kind of fills in behind him and picks up on that
rhythm. He's been pretty successful for us so far and