As a mid-May staple of the college rowing calendar for nearly a century, the Jefferson Dad Vail Regatta--and its 85 years of tradition--means a great deal to the teams that make it part of their schedule.
"It's always the first thing the alums want to talk about," said Matt Weaver, who took over the coaching at Dad Vail stalwart Drexel last fall.
For Weaver's team at Drexel, as with many so of the others gathered yet again for a shot at the Dad Vail hardware this weekend, the Vails matter, and the history at their boathouses is full of stories of Vail victories both long past and more recent.
"There's a lot of rich tradition," Weaver said about the Vails. "You want to do very well at this regatta to honor the tradition of all the alums who have raced here and all their good memories, so you can continue a really good legacy."
Weaver grew up in Philly, and he did his college rowing at Penn--a Sprints school which doesn't race the Vails unlike most of the locals--but he has been making up for his lost Dad Vail time: before taking up the reins at Drexel this past fall, Weaver helped coach LaSalle and then Temple, two other Philly programs with deep memories of Dad Vail glory. As a result, he knows a bit about the legacy piece at stake this weekend as he looks to keep Drexel's winning streak going in his first year with the Dragons.
As it happens, Drexel, Temple and LaSalle were the three semi-final winners in the Men's Varsity Eight as the first day of racing drew to a close, so the stage could well be set for one of the Philly schools that sees the Vails, as Weaver noted, "as the pinnacle of rowing in the area" to claim local bragging rights in the final race of the regatta.
The racing to join the party with those three in the Grand Final was worth waiting around for, even in the rain. With just two crews to make it through across the three semis, the Vails served up the usual Friday afternoon fireworks, courtesy of the Men's Varsity Eights: Rutgers edged Colgate--the bronze medal winner a year ago--by .09 seconds, St. Joe's survived a late charge by Delaware's Blue Hens, and Western Ontario was the only crew to make it through comfortably in second.
That racing wrapped up an afternoon of semis across sixteen events, but the real task of the day for nearly every crew in the regatta was attacking--and in some cases surviving, in a gusty wind--the full morning of time trials that kicked off the regatta.
Those time trials gave crews the chance to find out how their speed matched up in their event and to determine their path for the rest of the weekend. row2k caught up with a few coaches to ask about the focus they gave their crews for approaching the "race to set up the racing" on Friday.
"Getting It Right"
The time trial plan URI put to use with both the men's eight in the Club/DIII event and the women's Club Eightworked pretty well: both eights picked up a win in the morning to grab the top seed in their event for the rest of the weekend.
"We had to figure out how we wanted to approach the time trial," said URI coach Tim Nesselrodt. "With advancing into semis for the men and the finals for the women, I think we executed right on target. We wanted to go into it so we can build throughout the weekend."
"It certainly worked out pretty well for us position-wise," Nesselrodt said, about taking the wins in both crews. "Now they've just got to stay grounded and do all the right stuff for the rest of today and into tomorrow to be ready for what should be some pretty tight racing."
"We have actually practiced for the time trial itself for the last three weeks. We knew this was going to take place and so we spent a lot of time prepping for doing a time trial and getting it right. The general strategy was that we wanted to stay sharp and make sure we were at our physical best and able to put down a good amount of speed, but not going into those faster gears that we use when we get side by side.
"It's about hitting right in that middle ground, so that we're sharp and on top of it. That way the body's ready to go going into tomorrow, but we're not going into tomorrow tired. We know we've got more speed and we're simply kind of prepping ourselves for that next round of racing."
The URI eights are using the Vails as a final tune-up for the ACRA Championship next weekend. In fact, Nesselrodt left part of his team home but felt like the varsity eights could really benefit from the extra racing here after having to skip New Englands because of scheduling issues. His women's eight is ranked fourth in the latest ACRA poll and will be looking for hardware at the club national championship.
Nesselrodt also brought URI's Novice Women's Four, because the team won that event last year. "There's a little bit of pride in that group about carrying that forward," he noted, "and the four of them really stepped up from our novice group and put the work in." That new novice four won their semi today in their bid to keep that bit of tradition going so the URI camp is excited about their chances to take home a medal in the final. It should come down to a good boat race with the George Mason four which won the time trial in the morning and came out on top in the other semi.
"Rowing Within Yourself"
Dominican College's Ivan Rudolph-Shabinsky found himself giving very similar advice about rowing conservatively to each of his athletes when it came to coaching the single scullers he brought, albeit for different reasons.
"We tried to come up with plans for each individual based on where we thought they were," said Rudolph-Shabinsky about his time trial strategies. "For example, with Dante Galisteo, our men single sculler, I was pretty confident that he was going to be first or second in this in this race, just based on his previous racing this year. So what we were working on today was just having him row well within himself."
With Tara Long, in the Women's single, Rudolph-Shabinsky has an athlete who is coming back from injury, and is just at the end of her second year of rowing after walking-on. "She's made great strides," he said, "but she has had to deal with this injury that really kept her limited." As a result, the coaches did not want her to push too hard, especially with both a time trial and a semi on the same day.
Long nonetheless took second in the time trial, behind only the two-time defending champ Ruthie Lacey from OCU. "She's doing surprisingly well," said Rudolph-Shabinsky, "considering how little training she's done and for today the strategy was row within yourself because we don't know how many races your back has in it, so let's save it for the final. And the good news was, rowing within herself, she was near the top of the pack.
Sometimes that extra time trial race can really benefit your crew, said Rudolph-Shabinsky.
"The kids I'm actually most excited about and who made the most progress was our men's double. They finished third in their time trial and something finally clicked today. The stroke is a novice and he just has not rowed much before, but he's on a very steep learning path.
"For them, I told them, I want you to race hard and try to race your best. The conditions are terrible. You need to learn how to relax and they finally learned how to relax out there. They had a really good race and now they've found another another gear and another level. So they're excited about trying to medal tomorrow."
"Execute the Technical Stuff"
The MIT Light Men's continued their coast-to-coast road show with a win in the Light Eight time trial. The Vails has become an annual trip for MIT, who won here last year, largely because it offers one of the last remaining light men's eights races outside of the Sprints and the IRAs, the regatta where the 8th ranked Engineers hope to be racing in a few weeks.
"When we first started coming to the Dad Vail, the goal was to try to put together a lead-up to the IRA that was a better fit for our program," noted MIT Head Coach Will Oliver.
With just the two crews entered this year doing the time trial, MIT did not need to push for a favored lane, so instead the team used the piece to keep fine-tuning their speed before pivoting to racing Mercyhurst side-by-side in Saturday's final.
"We had a training goal that we've been working on for the last week or two weeks," said Oliver. "We're trying to execute some things better at higher rates, and the goal was really just to execute the technical stuff that we've been working on really well."
"Set Yourself Up"
Ultimately, of course, the time trial is not really separate from the rest of the regatta, and even getting off to a good start is just the first step, so most coaches we caught up with were really just eager to get to the next round of racing to see where they really stand.
Fordham head coach Rebecca Gronsdahl saw her crew sweep out to a win in the Women's Varsity Eight, ahead of Drexel and Georgetown's open women. All three of those crews are back at the Vails this year since the regatta does not conflict with their conference championships next weekend.
For Gronsdahl, even a fast time trial was just prelude to what lies ahead in tomorrow semis and finals.
"We're happy with the result," she said after the morning, "but excited to see how our speed looks like head to head with other crews in the heats and the finals."
Drexel coach Weaver had a similar, next-step take on his V8's racing:
"We wanted to throw down a piece we felt good about and were confident in and could build off of the rest of the regatta. The better you do in the time trial, the more favorable your semi is, so with that we wanted to go out and be confident. Not show all of our cards but set ourselves up for a good rest of the regatta."
Racing on Saturday starts at 8 am, and the morning features B Finals leading up to the semis for the Women's DIII Eights, Women's Varsity Eights, and Men's Club/DIII eights. Grand Finals start at 11:45 am Saturday, and the Women's and Men's Varsity Eight Finals are set for 4:40 pm and 5:00 pm.
Follow along with row2k's coverage to find information on how to watch the live stream and follow results throughout the weekend, and to see photos of all the action on the Cooper.
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