This is the sixth time we have
started off our season with this scrimmage and I always feel like it is way too
early to be racing. But I always come away reminded of its value for us. When
Greg Hughes (Princeton Head Coach), Tony Johnson (Georgetown Head Coach), and I
started talking about this race we felt just racing a 2K for your opening race
and then loading the trailer and going home was not enough. The morning session was a
2K followed by a 1K, and in the afternoon session, we did four 750m races. In
all the various races you could see crews from all three schools trying various
tactics or points of emphasis—some successful and some not. My thanks to Greg
and Tony for their adaptability and willingness to make this format work for
the good of all.
You can find the USRowing
Pre-Season National Poll HERE
You can find a recap with lineups
on the Cuse.com site HERE
Varsity Eight: We had
two goals coming in to this race: (1) Establish a strong rhythm on the
shift down from our starting sequence, (2) Be stubborn in the middle 1500m of
the race. Like a lot of crews in this early season racing the first time
we rowed our “race line-up” was in the paddle the night before. I thought we
accomplished both of our goals. Nobody likes to lose a boat race but the
guys fought and didn’t back down when Princeton got out to an early lead.
I will take that this time of year. I thought we did a nice job of
hanging tough with Princeton through the middle. Of the six-second margin, they
managed about 4 seconds of it in the first and last 300m. The guys felt good
about effort and we identified a few areas to work on during the next few
weeks.
2nd Varsity Eight:
This crew had a rough go in the 2K racing and this is the very reason I like
this format. There were some young guys in this crew with not a lot of
collegiate racing experience, and the excitement of being side by side with
another crew resulted in a very frantic/scrambled rhythm. Coach Cottingham sat
them down in the break between the two sessions, got them refocused, and they
were a different crew in the afternoon session.
Third and Fourth Varsity Eights: Both of these crews are coached by Coach Stangel and they
both had really good races in the 2K. Both crews had aggressive starts
and were able to get out to about 3/4 of a length lead in the first 500m of the
race. From their they both did a good job of controlling their races and
countering the various pushes by the Princeton Crews. A lot of people in
these two races experiencing their first collegiate racing and did a very nice
job of wearing the Orange racing jersey for the first time.
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