Yesterday, the WPI men’s and women’s crews began their 2017-2018 seasons. The men rowed in Lowell MA while the women travelled to Hartford CT. It was a beautiful day with light winds and calm waters.
The men were the top collegiate finishers in all but one of their events, easily defeating rival Wesleyan in the Open Eight and Open Four where our top boats finished second to Riverside BC. The novices won their race although Wes did get a penalty for cutting a buoy. The M2V8 finished a strong third in the Club eight behind Riverside and Wes’s varsity boat, and 20 seconds in front of Wes’s 2nd boat. The 2V also finished 4th in the Open eight and an eight with five freshmen in it was only 9 seconds behind them in 5th.
It was a strong opening performance. Most of the rowers rowed twice and we under stroked most of our competitors. There is still a lot of speed to be found but it was good to see medals around a lot of WPI necks.
The women also had a successful day at The riverfront Recapture Regatta in Hartford. They were third in the Open eight behind highly ranked Wesleyan and D1 UConn (only 1 sec back of the Huskies) and also had boats finish 10th and 13th. The WV8 beat Trinity and Smith as well.
The highlight of the day was the Open fours big win. The Engineers beat Wes by 15 secs with boats also finishing 6th, 7th and 14th. Coach Jason Steele was very happy with his team’s performance.
Camie Eaton is getting a new group of parents organized and they put on a great table of food and drink in Lowell. We are vey lucky to have such great support from the parents.
Our next race will be the Snake on the lake in two Saturdays.
Larry
Excellent start to the season! Thanks for the update. Looking forward to seeing lots more “hardware” being worn by WPI rowers. Cheers!
are you guys going to post pictures or videos or the race? thanks.