The field at Sunday's ECAC National Invitational Collegiate Regatta (NIRC) regatta was not too different from last week's New England Rowing Championships field, though some New England schools headed south for the Dad Vails, and some non-New England programs head north to Massachusetts to race. And then there are a few programs like the Bucknell and Michigan men's programs who like to do both regattas in one weekend.
The day was filled with new events, new winners, and some awards dock veterans who collected more hardware improved their cox tosses over last week. (That's what really matters, right?)
It was a hot and breezy Mother's Day in Worcester. As is typical in New England, rowers went from bemoaning the ice just a few weeks ago to 85 degree racing condition; how's that for contrast!
Women's Racing
"There's two New England Championships, and if you win it the first time you need to be winning it the second time," Williams' coach Peter Wells told Bates coach Peter Steenstra. Well, Steenstra and the whole Bates women's team took that to heart and won it again and the Bates V8, 2V8, and 3V8 crews all took home their second gold in two weeks, with the novice crew repeating their bronze in a tight race (much to the excitement of the Miller parents whose twin daughters collected their second pair of Gold-Bronze hardware from racing with Williams and Bates).
It has been a recent of women's championship season racing that the grand finals at NERC, ECAC and NCAA don't look too different from one another because of the high concentration of DIII programs in New England. One of the more interesting parts of the day was the finishing order of the women's varsity race – the same finish order as ECACs last year – Bates, Williams, then Trinity. It's likely all three of those crews will have the chance to meet again in Sacramento in a few weeks.
"All those teams are very well coached, they're very motivated, when we go to NCAA we know that we're not going to race the same crews – they're different crews with the same colored shirts. They're improved; they're more focused on us. Last year's a great example – Trinity crew won at New England's, came in third at ECAC, then they really burned down the house at NCAA," Steenstra said.
"We're hoping to follow suit and continue to improve over the past two weeks with that single goal of going after the same crews again. We like being the target. It changes the psyche of the whole team when they know that others are training with them in mind, and for us, we're training with our ultimate speed in mind," added Steenstra.
The road of hard work that lies ahead for the Bates crew as they look ahead to the NCAA didn't stop them from celebrating their success this weekend. After winning the women's points trophy and Steenstra being awarded both the men's and women's ECAC Coach of the Year awards, he took a celebratory jump into Quinsigamond at the chanting of his name – an exciting and hilarious moment for the team.
"Peter so deserves it," said captain and V8 stroke Rebecca O'Neill. "When I saw his hands up at the end of our race last week it was the best moment my rowing career – we had no idea if we had won that race. He's been a mentor and a coach and 120% there for all of us."
In the V4, William Smith took home the gold, racing a brand new lineup to a win.
"We went into this race definitely unsure and not having any expectations of ourselves but also of the other boats and we had nothing to lose, but you also everything to gain," said senior Aly Clark. "It felt very strong, and everything that we've been working on as individuals throughout the season really came together during the race."
Men's Racing
Despite a lineup change that shook up both the Michigan men's V4 and 3V8 just moments before launching, both crews prevailed and won their races. The original four lineup that was planning on racing was the lightweight four that won a bronze medal at Dad Vail on Saturday – they were looking to get back-to-back medals and they didn't let a different lineup change their plans.
"We had about 1500 meters to work out a rhythm and then we just went for it," said coxswain Chelsea Tistle. "The three guys and myself from the lightweight four were excited and ready to go after our performance at Dad Vails, and the freshman Peter who subbed in was excited to go with the varsity guys and win."
Steve Sikora, who was in the original lightweight four lineup and has been racing with that same lineup for two years now, subbed into the 3V8 – a heavier crew, in a slightly larger hull than he's used to racing.
"Everyone in the 3V knew that I was supposed to be in the V4 and they wanted to get me a gold medal because the 4 had just gotten the gold so it was an interesting dynamic in the boat," said Sikora. "I also wanted to make sure I got the guys a gold medal."
After falling to Hobart at ECACs last year, and losing to FIT at Dad Vails this year by just a hair, the Michigan V8 had a lot on the line and everything to prove. Head coach Gregg Hartstuff quoted one of his athletes in describing the Dad Vails race, "1950 meters of flawless rowing, and in the last 50 meters they bobbled a bit, mis-stepped and didn't sprint out well."
The guys prevailed with a strong race, winning by a solid three seconds over Hobart and the NERC champs, Bates.
"We actually tweaked the race plan a little bit," said Hartstuff. "We'd been sprinted on by Hobart before, and Western Ontario at Henley last year, then FIT yesterday, so we just held a long base. We figured they [Hobart] would try to do what FIT did to us yesterday - stay close, let us wear out, then sprint past - so we just held a good long strong base, didn’t do anything fancy, then sprinted our asses off. It seemed to work well."
It seemed to work so well, that row2k overheard one of the athletes saying, "I need to thank Gregg, I really didn't think that new plan would work."
Michigan took home the men's points trophy, and following Peter Steenstra, Hartstuff and assistant coach Charley Sullivan went for a refreshing celebratory swim in Quinsigamond.
Despite not regaining their V8 title at this year's regatta, the Hobart men still had a very strong showing, placing second in the V8 and 3V8 and taking home the gold over Michigan and Bucknell in the 2V8 – the first gold for that boat class at ECACs in the program's history.
"I was really happy for the crew; they're a group that has a lot of fun together and love to drop the hammer," said head coach Paul Bugenhagen. "Racing is what they do best; today was their best race of the season and it's fitting that these guys would have the honor of taking home the programs 1st ECAC Championship in the event."
Novice Racing
The Williams novice crews had a great day of racing, winning both the men's and women's eights. While the women repeated their winning performance from last week, the men fell to Trinity by .4 seconds at NERC and used that margin to fuel their fire in training over the past week.
To say that men's novice coach Joe Gartland was excited about the win would be a huge understatement – his energy was tremendous, the joy he had for his team enormous. His novice crew won last year for the first time in program history, and after a tough start this season the win was even sweeter.
"We lost our first race of the season by 24 seconds to Drexel in Philly," said Gartland. "We have six true novices and were late getting on the water. It didn’t click right off the bat but we took it week by week and got a little bit better every week. We lost by .4 to Trinity last week and that was pretty hard – when I gave them their silver medals I told them to remember how that felt - we got back to work and took it this week and took it.
"The freshman men hadn’t won ECAC before last year and that was a great race, but to win it again shows that last year wasn't a fluke. We're a legitimate program with guys that worked their tails off that are well trained and have the capacity to do it year in and year out."
With a big group of walk-ons, the novice women developed a strong crew – taking home two pieces of championship hardware isn't a bad way to end a novice season.
"The season has been really exciting," said 2-seat Hallee Wong. "We had a large freshman class; 24 rowers, mostly walk-ons and that's given a lot of energy to the team. It always helps having people push up from the bottom. We were really excited to come out and try to do it again this weekend – we had a plan and we wanted to come and execute the plan."
"The freshman class has been tight-knit this whole season and I think that proves the power of human relationships. They helped each other out a lot," added Garland.
The Williams novice wins helped propel their team to win the overall points trophy.
Inclusion Exhibition Race
This year's race included a new exhibition event – inclusion rowing, where 50 percent of the athletes in a crew have a disability and 50 percent are able bodied. Men's and women's trunk and arms (TA) doubles and legs, trunk and arms (LTA) fours all raced the full 2k course.
Ellen Minzner, the director of the adaptive rowing program at Community Rowing was instrumental in helping put together this exhibition race.
"After the ECAC Announcement, Gary Caldwell, Jim Dietz, Ted Fay, and Joe Walsh got together and wanted rowing to be one of the first sports to adopt the new policy," said Minzner. "They called me in to figure out what to offer - in March I might add, it was tough to get all this together on short notice!
"I love the idea of 2k, same gender, inclusion racing, so we went with the LTA category in the 4+ and the 2x, since we wanted to demonstrate how easily such events would align with existing collegiate programs and events. On the water we will have 10 athletes who were involved in US team trials and selection camps last year, including two of the silver medalists from last years four."
While not all the athletes racing in the exhibition were collegiate athletes, Jaclyn Smith, who has been on the US Para National Team in the LTAMix4+ the past two years was a great example of a collegiate athlete who would race in this event in the future. Smith, who has ocular albinism, which affects her vision and depth perception.
"Growing up I always played sports because I am from a very spots-oriented family. I was always good at sports, but I could never be great because of depth perception with the ball. When I got to high school I learned about rowing and it didn’t have a ball so I tried it and got hooked," said Smith.
Smith continued to row throughout her four years in college at Sacred Heart, and finished off her collegiate career with a silver medal in the W2- at Dad Vails this weekend before coming up to row at ECAC.
"Today was a great day for para-rowing in general; inclusive rowing needs to be a hundred percent more universal," said Smith. "Rowing is easier for some disabled athletes to get into than some other sports, and I think it’s a real wake up call to our society that just because this person has a disability – that they have to adapt to do something – doesn’t mean they cant do it."
The hope is that the inclusion event can become an official part of the regatta with teams from many schools racing, and points counting toward a team trophy.
"The idea of inclusion is would be teams can enter the V8, JV8, V4+, and possibly the I4," said Minzner. "It's all one team, just another event. Many athletes trying out for the US Paralympic Team do not have the benefit of coming from a competitive college team--they would find rowing after college, missing a key stage in their athletic development. This changes that.
"All my athletes from last year's silver medal LTA4+ were from competitive college and high school teams, where they made the boat despite a disability. That is new, and now with events set up for this, I think we will find more and more athletes who can compete internationally."
For many crews, this regatta marks the end of the season, a few are heading to IRAs, a couple to ACRAs, and many of the women's teams will be watching the DIII selection show with bated breath this evening – May 11th. row2k will keep you updated on all those regattas over the next few weeks.
More to come from the shores of Lake Quinsigamond next weekend for the Eastern Sprints.
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