The long brutal season of crew has come to an end, and it did so with a bang. On May 24, the freshman girls team placed third at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America (SRAA) Nationals in Camden, New Jersey.
The team used momentum gained the weekend before to reach stardom. At the Stotesbury Regatta in Philadelphia, the unit struck gold for the first time in girls program history. They rowed a hard race and took first by three seconds, cementing a foundation to build upon to close out their season.
Amid the freshman girls’ dominant success, the program’s overall performance proved their well-earned regional dominance. Two out of three of the varsity girls boats qualified for semifinals. The freshman boys boat made it to the semis. Varsity boys were also prolific, with two boats competing in semis and their second boat placing fourth in finals.
The top two varsity girl and boy boats along with one freshman boat for each gender journeyed to Nationals. SRAA’s is a nationally competitive and prestigious race, a reward of a team’s success after a long season, where 155 clubs collide.
The format for Nationals was similar to Stotes: boats had to place highly in time trials and semifinals consecutively in order to compete in the finals. The freshman girls did just this, earning their spot to try for a medal.
Morning of the race, rowers in the freshman boat experienced tons of emotions. This was the largest race any of them had participated in, while also feeling sadness due to the season reaching the end of the line. “I was kinda sad because this was our last race of the season,” rower Tessa Frantz said. After pre race rituals took place, the boat rowed up to the starting line.
The race started strong; the girls jumping to an early lead. Once in the first place, the girls were giving it their all, but faltered and fell victim to the most dreaded regatta situation: catching a crab. This occurs when a boat falls off rhythm and an oar gets stuck, so the team must stop and take time to fix it.
As the tigers struggled to recompose and start moving again, two boats jumped ahead of them, where they then fell to third on the leaderboard. Despite burnout, faltering hope, and fatigue, boat pushed and gave it their all.
In the end, the boat received a third place finish. “Even though I wanted gold, I’m really happy [we] got the opportunity to even go to nationals,” said Frantz. The girls’ accomplished season ended with food and a team meeting. Next year they will join the varsity team, and compete amongst both old and new teammates.
