Rowers Strong in First Race of Season

Author: Ashley Elpern

In their first regatta of the spring season, the Middlebury crew team fared quite well against Massachusetts Maritime Academy and Franklin Pierce College on Sunday, despite the fact that the races began at 6:45 a.m. with Daylight Savings Time kicking in. All boats raced on a 2,000-meter course at Herring Pond in Buzzards Bay, Mass.

On the men's varsity side, the lightweight four of Brian Ambrette '02, G.P. LeBourdais '04, Luke Mueller '04 and Jeff Koppernolle '04 finished only two feet behind the first boat from Franklin Pierce. Although the men's lightweight eight was beaten by an openweight eight from Mass Maritime, Ambrette said that the races went "very well," for the first race of the season.

Varsity coach Alex Machi commented on the eight's race. "Going up against a very aggressive Mass Maritime team, we got a wake up call. But he we hadn't been working in the big boat much yet, electing to ferret out technical flaws in the four so we're not too surprised at this result." He applauded the results of both the fours, but added, "we haven't begun to reach our potential."

The men's novice came out with a bang, as the four of first-years Hans Manzke, Steve Venturi, Ian Tyree and Bryce Roche won their race over Mass Maritime by almost a minute, a huge margin in 2,000-meter races.

The eight raced head to head with Mass Maritime, "losing by about 10 to 15 seconds yet still having a good race," said Manzke. He noted that many on the team just began rowing this semester, and that the team has a lot of potential with more practice time ahead,

In the first women's openweight four race, the Middlebury women (coswain Susy King, '02 Lisa Mc Andrews '02, Sarah Bunnell '04, Emily Loesh '05 and Mary Gerrie '03) finished second to Franklin Pierce. "We raced against them last year and they did fairly well at New Englands, so Franklin Pierce is a boat that we will look to beat when we race them in two weeks," said McAndrews.

Middlebury fielded two other fours this weekend, but unfortunately the women's varsity eight race was cancelled due to time constraints. Said Machi of the women's performance, "We saw good form from the women's boats, even though we were going up against a couple of really strong teams. I think we were able to row our race in each case, focusing on making improvements rather than struggling to beat another boat. As we implement these changes, we'll see boat speed increase and we stand a good chance of being on top of Franklin Pierce by the time we get to the New England Rowing Championships."

With the first race of the season complete, McAndrews said that the team has "a lot of work to do, but we have had a solid start." She attributes the "fantastic" rowing conditions on Lake Dunmore, which last year was still frozen at this time, as helping the team's progress.

The women's novice team surprised themselves, beating the Mass Maritime eight by over five boat lengths for the win. "It was our first 2,000 meter race, so we didn't know what to expect," said Sara Hayes '05. "We started out head to head with Mass Maritime, and with each stroke we took we kept gaining on them. At the end, we had already turned around to head back to the dock when Mass Maritime finished their race."

Machi was especially proud of the novice women, "the biggest surprise of the weekend." He noted that "the improvement since Miami has been phenomenal, and attributes much of this to the work of Novice coach Doug Welling. "But they work they put into each race is all their own doing," he concluded.

This weekend, both the varsity and novice teams will take on Amherst and Bowdoin at Amherst's home course on the Connecticut River.