Men's crew competes at the Belly of the Carnegie
Two boats compete against nation's best in Princeton, NJ

By Brian Mulligan, November 2006

The men's crew team sent two novice boats to the prestigious head race, the Belly of the Carnegie, in Princeton, New Jersey on Nov. 12. The team competed against several of top 20 crews in the nation, placing 18th and 19th in a field of 23 boats. The race consists of teams sending two novice boats of even-speed, mixing recruits with walk-ons to judge the depth and skill of each school's first-year class. The Bison had to rub elbows with some of the most prestigious programs in the nation including ivies Yale, Princeton and Cornell, who annually recruit some of the best high school rowers in the nation, while the Orange and Blue consists of mainly walk-ons.

"The program has never attempted to race at this level before and the fact that we got out there and went toe to toe with these programs speaks to the progress the program is making," Head Coach Paul Bugenhagen said.

The Orange and Blue fielded an "A" and "B" boat that finished the 2 _ mile head race in 15:05.74 and 14:56.87 respectively. The team finished ahead of rivals Delaware and Georgetown. The "A" boat was coxed by Michael Gundersen and stroked by Zach Konsin. Behind him were Zach Etzel, Kyle Lafferty, Christopher Damiano, David Schluter, Keith Desmond, Byron Garoufalis and Peter Kasper. The "B" boat consisted of cox Kells Green, stroke David Ross, Dan Elies, George Rockett, Zach Manburg, Chris Ostman, Andrew Watson, Kaz Kawamura and Adam Lessing.

"The race went pretty well in my opinion. It was crazy going up against the powerhouse teams in rowing," Garoufalis said. "It was really cool to test our skill against the nation's best teams, especially when my boat (the A boat) was in a dogfight with the Yale boat the last 1000 meters and ended up holding them off."

Along with an impressive finish, the Bison also made another statement with their racing shirt. The slogan of "I Am A Great Big Hairy American Winning Machine" was plastered across the back of each of the rowers racing shirts. The slogan made such a big impact at the regatta that an image of the t-shirt was featured on the main page of rowing's premier website, www.row2k.com.

The Belly also marked the end of the fall season for the men's crew team and the beginning of the winter training season. The training season consists of a strength and endurance training program to prepare for the spring championship season, ending with a week-long training trip to Austin, TX.

"We're going to row a 1,000,000 meters from now until we take the first strokes in Austin on January 9th," Bugenhagen said. "This will help us to take a lot of very high quality strokes and allow us to develop a fitness base that we can really build on as we head into the spring sprint season."

With a strong first-year class, the Bison are poised to compete with the nation's best and create a name for them on the national rowing scene.

See pictures of Bucknell competing at the Belly of the Carnegie here and here. Full results here (from row2k.com).