Coach Reischman's report on the Princeton Chase

Conditions: 61 degrees, sunny, light head wind, lots of current from rain day before.

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Eights Summary: The quick summary of results is that our first boat was 6th and our second boat was 40 seconds back in 25th place. Princeton won and was 11.4 seconds out on us with Yale, Columbia, BU, and Cornell all sandwiched in between the winners and us. I was pretty happy with the varsity’s race for the first time down a race course this year. We were clean and had a decent rhythm for much of the race. The guys felt the let the pace sag a little bit too much in the middle part of the race course but rowed solid in the first part and last part of the race. That is pretty typical of a crew’s first fall race. The second boat really struggled to find the type of rhythm that they had in practice and 40 seconds is too far off our first boat. We will have to address that moving forward.

Fours Summary: After the eights race the guys get about 30 minutes of rest then we split the eights up in to fours and go back out for race #2. I like fours racing in the fall because I think you get a better look at the strengths and weaknesses of your squad. Again, I think the results are pretty telling of the challenges we will face in the spring. Our “A” boat (all juniors) had a great race and finished second to a strong Princeton crew by 0.4 seconds. A close one! Not a bad margin for just over 13 minutes of racing. Strong rhythm and good cadence al l the way down the course. There was a pesky BU crew in front of us that probably should have yielded the last turn to us but insisted on staying in our way. Such is fall racing. The “B” and “C” boats didn’t have very good races at all and this is, obviously, a bit of a concern. They were 74 seconds back of the “A” boat and that isn’t a good margin for either boat. We had this same issue, although not such a big margin, last year at this race and we were able to get things back on track by Thanksgiving so we will have the same challenge this year.

Frosh Head of the Fish Report: Our frosh had their first race of the fall at the Head of the Fish. The first race for frosh is always a huge learning experience, particularly for the Novices in the crowd. Everyone survived the ordeal quite well. Our A boat finished first by 25 seconds over Hobart. The B boat finished 4th. I am looking forward to seeing these guys race again this coming weekend.

Next Up: On this Saturday, October 31st, we will be hosting our own fall head race at the Ten Eyck Boathouse. The varsity will race in fours and the frosh will race in eights. We will keep our “A” 4+ the same this week. To determine the rest of the fours line ups we will have a pairs race on Thursday AM. For most of the fall I decide on pairs partners but I told the guys they can choose their own partners for this one. We will see if we find some interesting new combinations for the B and C fours and if we can close that gap. The race course for this weekend starts on the Seneca River about half way to the Belgium Bridge (at channel marker 258) and finishes in front of the boathouse at the Long Branch Bridge. Racing starts at 10:00 am!