By Mark Rossman ’14, Sports Editor

The men’s and women’s rowing teams have made great strides this Fall season. The teams are now on hiatus until Spring, when the team’s real season begins. Crew is a Fall and Spring sport, however the team treats Fall more as an acclimating period for newcomers, and Spring as the real competition. The team now is in a transition period between seasons, as the team prepares on the ergs for the Spring season approaching.

“Since our Fall season is now over, going into Winter training, as a team, we need to keep up doing the workouts,” said Sam Alter ’15, member of the F&M men’s rowing team. “A goal could be to continue to train together to motivate each other. We have the potential to do so well, but it means nothing if we don’t commit to work really hard.”

After competing in the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Competition or the MARC last season, the team has high hopes for the Spring season ahead.

“I think the men’s team goal is simply just to get faster and stronger and sharpen up our technique,” Sam Alter ’15 said. “For this Spring, we’d like to win retake our title at MARCs, and if we could go on to Dad Vails that would be great too.”

According to godiplomats.com, in terms of this season, the men’s varsity 8+ boat of Aidan Smith ’16 (cox), James Lai ’17, Paul Stine ’16, Connor Ten Cate ’14, Ben Weiserbs ’14, James Nelson ’17, Jeff Smith ’14, Tim Smith ’15, and Sam Alter ’15 (stroke) finished 14 of 25 at 15:27.15 in the Head of Schuylkill Regatta, competing against some of the best rowing programs in the nation. The women’s varsity 8+ boat of Julia Scavicchio ’14 (cox), Sarah Gunzburg ’17, Alaina Ignas ’16, Sarah Nelson ’17, Carolina Giraldo ’16, Natalie Guzikowski ’16, Anna Kohler ’17, Maggie Provencher ’14, and Allison Hoffman ’16 (stroke) finished 14 of 40 at 16:18.20 in the Head of the Schuylkill. Earlier in October in the Navy Day Regatta, the men’s lightweight 4+ boat of A. Smith (cox), Alter, J. Smith, Nelson, and Lai took second at 14:00.44, just about a minute after the winner University of Pennsylvania, which took home the gold at 13:09.27.

“That was the first time we had a lightweight crew, and to have such a good showing was very impressive,” Alter said.

The 4+ women’s boat of Scavicchio, Hoffman, Provencher, Giraldo, and Guzikowski finished eleventh at 15:32.62. Both teams have their eyes on the prize this coming Spring, and are already well underway preparing their bodies to be in the best shape they can for the tough regattas coming their way.

The Spring season should be a challenging one for both teams, and Winter training will determine their successes to come.

Senior Mark Rossman is the Sports Editor. His email is mrossman@fandm.edu.

 

By TCR