|
Volume CXXXIII, Number 5 |
 |
Crew looks to NH Championships and Head of
the Charles
ELIZABETH GOTT
STAFF WRITER
The Bowdoin Crew delivered a strong showing last weekend at the Textile
River Regatta in Lowell, Massachusetts last weekend. Tom Scifres '03 and
Will LoVerme '02 captured the team's only first-place finish, winning
the men's pair race with a time of 22:14.
In addition to the men's pair victory, the team placed in the top four
of each race it entered. Coach Gil Birney indicated that he was pleased
with the results at the regatta's end. "It was a good first race
for a lot of boats, and now we've got a good two weeks [before the next
race] to get even better," he said.
After having rowed just two hours before in the men's open fours race,
LoVerme and Scifres found that racing in a pair is very physically demanding.
"The pair is very tough," bowman Scifres said. "It really
separates the men from the boys."
The three varsity men's boats finished just a minute apart from each
other in the open fours race, taking third, 13th, and 18th places in a
field of 31 boats. Coming in with a time of 21:18, the first boat was
just three seconds off of Rhode Island's second-place time. That boat,
stroked by LoVerme, was happy with its performance, despite having to
fight a strong headwind in the final 1000 meters of the race.
The second varsity men were also happy with their race. "I didn't
really know what to expect coming into the race. We were a little anxious,"
said first year coxswain Ben Needham. "But once we started racing,
we forgot about that and just rowed hard."
The first varsity women had an impressive race, finishing just twenty
seconds out of first in a 41-boat field. Captain Lindsay Sortor '02 stroked
the boat against the women of Community Rowing Incorporated, a strong
rowing club based in Massachusetts.
The women were especially pleased to finish ahead of the University of
Vermont, a rival crew that is usually very strong.
The second varsity women, stroked by Anjali Dotson'04, finished a solid
25th under the leadership of first-year coxswain Takara Larsen.
All the novices were new to rowing this season, and had no idea what
to expect from their first regatta. However, they managed to remain calm
in windy conditions, and dealt with the choppy water as best they could.
The experience of coxswains Susan Buhr '04 and Lauren Sarno '04 helped
the first novice men and women each to fourth-place finishes in their
races.
Sarno, coxswain of the first novice women's boat, said that she was impressed
with the women's efforts. "It's hard to describe the mood that surrounded
our first race," she said. "The strength and determination that
filled the rowers was amazing. I was very proud of their perseverance."
The crew will travel to the New Hampshire Championships on the Merrimac
River this weekend, and plans to take advantage of this smaller, yet competitive
regatta to prepare it for the Head of the Charles. Set for next weekend,
the HOC is a regatta whose international competition promises to be this
fall's biggest challenge.