Amid torrential downpours and 40 degree weather, the women’s crew team raced three boats at the Head of the Fish in Saratoga, New York last Saturday. In their last race of the fall season, the Cardinals rowed aggressively in all events, with the varsity eight taking 15th place in the 22 boat field, finishing in 12:47.56. The junior varsity eight finished sixth out of seven teams in 14:23.14, and the novice eight took 11th place out of 31 teams with a time of 13:34.35.
“We were pleased with their performance,” said Head Coach Beth Emery. “Each individual athlete has made a lot of progress this season and that really showed Saturday.”
The awful weather was demoralizing, according to varsity eight member Elaine Lauriat ’09.
“It was pouring and wet through the entire race, and you can’t really feel it when you’re racing,” said Katie Boyce-Jacino ’10. “But rowing back afterwards, slowly, I felt myself getting wetter and wetter, colder and colder. My feet went numb.”
Wet conditions did not prevent the novice eight from delivering a very strong performance.
“We kept a good rating,” said Boyce-Jacino, who stroked the novice eight. “We were at 30 strokes per minute, which was higher than our target, so that definitely helped.”
“I was completely satisfied,” said Head Novice Coach Brian Dawe. “I was really happy to see that they rowed very strong and were really going after it.”
“The strength in that boat really bodes well for the future of our team as they progress to the varsity level, and I think we’re all really excited to see how much they will contribute in the spring,” Lauriat said of the novice eight, whose coxswain, Emily Compton ’10, steered effectively despite a cast on her wrist.
Dawe mentioned that not all of the team goals were met at the regatta on Sunday.
“It is tough when you’re racing against top schools like Buffalo and Syracuse,” he said.
The varsity eight had a particularly strong finish, picking up the power and sprinting the last 100 meters to pass the crew ahead of them.
“It was really fun to end out the season with such a strong sprint,” Lauriat said.
Both coaches and team members saw Saturday’s race as the successful culmination of a fall season focused on technical improvement. Because of the staggered starts, complicated courses, and changing lineups of head races success is difficult to measure objectively during the fall season.
“We do measure ourselves against our competition, but we look at individual progress a lot,” Emery said. “Partially, it’s hard to measure that in the fall because from one weekend to the next, the lineup can be very different among your own crew, as well as with the crews you’re competing against.”
“While our results might not have been super-impressive, we had a really great time and we can only get better,” Lauriat added.
The team’s focus now shifts to winter training, the non-required, but highly encouraged fitness regimen designed to fully prepare for the spring season.
“What we emphasize is that if they’re committed to their goals for the spring, they need to have a sense of urgency in the winter,” Emery said. “If they are consistent in their training, that’s what makes the difference.”
Lauriat agreed with Dawe, and suggested avoiding repetitive practice motivates the athletes to continue through the winter.
“We manage to switch it up, keep it fresh, and enjoy ourselves,” she said, citing yoga and bleacher runs as ways to escape the monotony of lifting and the ergometer machines. “It’s up to us to keep it up, to stay focused and committed, and to realize why we’re going to the gym every day.”
Emery and Dawe are looking to reduce the amount of drop-off typically experienced between fall and spring seasons by encouraging more students to consider crew.
“We’re very open to all athletes who are finishing up a fall sport and want to come out for the spring,” Emery said. “We lose some and we gain some, but it’s never too late.”
“I’m very optimistic about our team,” Lauriat said. “With the technical work in the fall with our coaches and the strength and fitness training in the winter, I think we can do really well in the spring. The team’s spirit is really on an upswing.”
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