We had another great day of racing Saturday at the Smokey Jacobs Regatta at Sandy Run Regional Park in Occoquan, Virginia. Both the men’s eight and the women’s four put forth valient efforts, and some novices got their first chances to experience racing in a varsity boat. Thanks again to all the regatta volunteers, and also to Michael Avery’s family, who hosted the dinner the evening before the race.
Reported by men’s coach Alan Burch:
“The men’s team had a tough week at practice, suffering several sick rowers, a couple of injuries, and some folks out of town, so it was quite a scramble to muster an eight at all. Many thanks to Tricia in her continuing off-site role in helping get us signed up for regattas, as she had to send in numerous changes to our line up this week, most after the standard cut-off time for making adjustments. So the eight we raced this week eventually included two novices, Reily and Philip, the latter racing for the first time. We approached the race as an experiment in committing to some of the technique work we’ve been doing, to gather data on what works. The boys raced tough and finished 4th of 5, in a race that included a couple of boats from very deep programs. We were closer to 3rd than 5th, and clearly belonged in the race. I was impressed with their fight.”
Reported by women’s coach Kalhan Koul:
“The women’s varsity four had a very good race; this week, we had our experienced stern pair (Maya and Brittany) coupled with our up and coming novices in bow pair (Leigh and Savannah). Although novices, Leigh and Savannah have come along very quickly, partially due to being embedded with Varsity on a daily basis. Although the girls only had one practice together in the lineup, they performed very well. They had a strong start and settled into a controlled base rate of around 30; they were right in the thick of things, and creeped up to 3rd place at the 1100 meter mark. Unfortunately, in the last 300m of the race, TC Williams put on a spectacular sprint whereas our boat had some trouble kicking up the rate in a controlled manner (something we are working on this week). Overall, it was a solid race and the girls were happy with their improvement over their race from last week; in terms of rankings, they finished 7th out of 10, which we feel to be a respectable result. Our girls are becoming more used to being in the thick of the race, and are building their ability to focus in, find their next gear, and fight for every stroke. We are looking forward to our return to the Occoquan later this week.”
Finally, photos from the Ergathon are posted on the pictures page of the website. Thanks to Katherine Samolyk for taking the photos.
See you Saturday, back at Occoquan for the Al Urquia Regatta.
Keven Vance
GDS Crew Club President