Men's crew brings back the hardware

By Andrew Neils

The men's crew team came back to campus this weekend weighing more than when it left. The rowers won medals in both events they competed in at the Head of the Occoquan on Sunday.

The race in Fairfax, Va. was the third and final race of the fall season for the Bison and it capped a great finish to the season.

The team competed with two eight-man boats in the championship and novice events. The varsity boat competing in the championship event raced in the afternoon, when conditions were slightly less than ideal with a strong head wind. Wind hurts a boat's sepped by resisting the blade, affecting balance and making oars dificult to handle.

Despite the wind, the varsity team still tore through the course to finish in third, only two seconds behind second place George Mason University and 20 seconds behind overall-winner Johns Hopkins University. The rowers raced the three-mile course in a final time of 17 minutes and 57 seconds.

The lineup for the varsity boat included coxswain Julia Miller '08 and the stroke-tobow order of: Brent Butler '06, Rob Blakemore '08, Dave Wingate '08, Jeremiah Delson '09, Garrett Samuels '06, Ben Finio '07, J.T. Dean '07 and Jonathan Bloom '06.

The novice boat performed well, winning its first race of the year by a large margin. The boat completed the course in 17:43, besting second place Loyola College by nearly a minute.

The novice boat raced in cleaner conditions than the varsity event, rowing in the morning before the wind picked up.

"The novice men won by 49 seconds over three miles. That's a good start and a nice announcement to the league and the other crews that we race that our program is strong top to bottom," Head Coach Paul Bugenhagen said.

The novice lineup included coxswain Mallory Coup '09, Brian Mulligan '08 at stroke followed by Kaikea Goo '07, Jeremiah Delson '09, Dan Lavy '07, Nate Humberston '08, Josh Diehl '09 , Vic Ceci '09 and John Conte '09 at bow.

"The novice men showed what can happen when you're in the system from day one, and it validates a lot of the time and effort all of them have been putting into learning how to move the boat and more importantly, how to race," Bugenhagen said.

The spring championship season occurs at the end of the school year, but the patient rowers will practice hard during the winter season so that they can come out of winter training in the best shape possible.

The team will practice on the water as much as weather permits over the next few weeks before making the switch to the indoor rowing machines called ergometers.

"Erging and winter training gets us physically and mentally ready for sprint season. Putting in all that time and effort in the winter pays off in the spring," Bloom said.

The men's and women's teams row indoors in the erg room, a converted racquetball court in the field house that contains enough ergs for the entire team. If you happen to hear blaring music coming from one of the racquetball courts, chances are you are walking past hard-working rowers in the erg room.