WEST WINDSOR, N.J. - Having an extra day off during an event that will determine if a crew earns a place on the team that will compete at the World Rowing Championships can sometimes make a difference.
USTC - Princeton's Tim Aghai (Skokie, Ill.) and Michael Disanto (Boston, Mass.) earned that break Monday morning by advancing straight to the Tuesday semifinal in the men's pair event with a time of 6:33.28 at the 2015 Senior World Championships Trials II. ?
"You are always hoping that you can be fast and win," said Aghai. "It is a good feeling. We just want to keep getting better throughout the regatta, doing as little work as we can and have as little pain as possible so that we can come out on top. We are really glad to be in the mix and it is even better that we are on the top."
"We have a plan to keep getting better throughout the regatta," said DiSanto. "We had a much better race today that we had last night. We are looking forward to having our best race in the final now."
The winners of the four events being contested this week, which include the men's single sculls, men's double sculls, men's pair and men's quadruple sculls, will earn spots on the team that will compete at the 2015 World Rowing Championships August 29-Sept. 6, 2015, in Aiguebelette, France.
Advancing to the semifinal from the second of the two heats in 6:40.22 were Vesper Boat Club's Steve Kasprzyk (Cinnaminson, N.J.) and Yohann Rigogne (Besançon, France).
Advancing from the first of three heats of men's single sculls to the Tuesday semifinals were Community Rowing Inc.'s Lucas Wilhelm(Miranda, Calif.) Wilhelm finished first in 7:20.10.
From the second heat, two-time Olympian Ken Jurkowski (New Fairfield, Conn.) advanced to the semifinal in 7:11.98 and from the third heat Craftsbury's Thomas Graves (Cincinnati, Ohio) advanced to the semifinal with the fastest time of the morning in 7:11.65
Rowing will resume at 6:00 p.m. with repechages for the singles. The men's pair repechage will be held Tuesday morning 7:50 a.m.