The Virginia Scholastic Rowing Championships – a Goal for Next Season

    The Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School Crew Team has never participated in the State Championship Regatta held on Occoquan Reservoir in Northern Virginia. There are a couple of reasons for this: we are a small and relatively inexperienced program and I felt uncomfortable making the excursion into the “big leagues.” The Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association (VASRA) http://www.vasra.org/History_and_Mission.html, the sponsoring body of the state championship, is one of “mid-majors” of this country’s rowing associations and have had member schools regularly participate in the Scholastic Rowing Association of America’s (SSRA) https://www.sraa.net/history/  National Championship regatta. But due to our growth this past season, I believe that a reasonable goal for next year is to have our top crews make the end-of-the-season trip to Occoquan for “states.”

    At this year’s state championship regatta, held the weekend of 14 and 15 May, there were 31 local crews participating. Most of these from the EVSRA http://www.evsra.org/ were public schools that row year ‘round (Granby, Great Bridge, Princess Anne, James River, Hickory, First Colonial, and Cox.)  But Norfolk Academy, a spring-only program like us, also sent five crews: their MV4, WV4, M2nd4, W2nd4, and WV8 crews (there are no novice events at states.) Their results were interesting: none of their top boats made it to finals, but their M2nd4 and W2nd4 crews finished second in their events, behind TC Williams and Episcopal respectively. (Complete results are here: http://roninregistration.com/rowing/results/resultseventlist.asp?p=default&pt=rowing&GroupID=40816&Year=2011 ) Even thought their best crews didn’t place, I think that NA’s participation at this level will only bolster their program, the strongest overall at this year’s independent schools regatta, for competition next year. I think we as a team are also in a position to finally make that same leap.

    I do not envision all team members making the trip to Occoquan. But a trip to States would require those crews that are interested to step up their game. To be competitive, an athlete would need to commit to year ‘round conditioning and practice. It would not be sufficient to simply start erging in February and get back into the boat in March as we have done in years past. One would need to build and maintain strength and endurance beginning today. Students who participate in other sports (cross country / football / volleyball /swimming / wrestling / basketball / etc.) are already getting the year ‘round conditioning. They would need to simply add some erg and boat time to their routine. I am willing to hold summer and fall rowing sessions for those folks. I would expect a large presence at next year’s erg pull. Students who want to go to states and who now only row in the spring would need to make a larger commitment. For example, join Mr. Campbell’s cross country team. Cross country also has a no-cuts policy and offers the chance for everyone to build leg and cardiovascular strength.

    There are other requirements for participation at States. Lightweight crews, for example, need to get the trainer to perform a body fat analysis before the season begins to ascertain that they do not drop below a certain threshold. There would also be an added time and financial cost. The reporting time at States is 6:45 a.m., necessitating a Friday departure and a hotel stay near the venue.

    There will still be plenty of spots on the crew team for rowers and coxswains who want to restrict their participation to the spring season in the local EVSRA regattas. But for those team members willing to take the next step, I’m willing to help them out.  New boats, new oars, new enthusiasm, new challenges -- pull hard, Crusaders!

Independent Schools Championship

In our last EVSRA regatta of the spring sprint season we again had some significant wins and some very close races. As in their first regatta four weeks earlier, both the men's novice four and the women's novice four crews finished first. This time they earned medals and the right to hold the associated perpetual trophies for the next year. Our novice guys retain the "Botanical Bailer," won last year by Brendan, Andrew, Thomas, Jakob, and Ryan and also by a BSCHS crew in 2005. Our novice girls won the Tenekjian Family Award for the fastest Women's Novice Four, a trophy never previously won by a BSCHS crew.

Also taking first was the Women's 2nd Four who won the Evans Bowl for the fastest Women's "Junior Varsity" Four, a trophy also won by a BSCHS crew in 2005.

 We had very close races in the Men's Light four and Women's Varsity four events where Norfolk Academy finished just a few seconds ahead of our crews. In both events NA and BSCHS were significantly ahead of the third place crews, indicating fast boats for the top two. Note that a 3 second difference over a six minute race is less than 1%. In rowing, every little bit counts!

Here are the results. In the overall scoring we finished 2nd behind Norfolk Academy.  As usual, send me any pictures that you have and I'll add them.

WLt4 Heat Race at the EVSRA Champs

Includes three novices, with a monster crab at about the 3:00 mark. The crew came back to finish 3rd.

WV4 heat race

Here is a "HQ"version of the WV4 heat race. I have the original high definition file but YouTube won't enable that large a file.  Two other races will be uploaded in the near future.

EVSRA Championships

For the second year in a row we've medaled at the regional championships. While last year's successes were at the novice level, this year we took home a silver medal at the varsity level. Congratulations to the Women's Second Varsity four+ crew who won their heat and went on to take second in their finals. We fielded ten crews, some who were thrown together just this week because we had a few folk who couldn't make it to the regatta. The results were somewhat disappointing, as evidenced by the demeanor of the women's novice four below, but I have high hopes for the independent schools championships next Friday. If you only consider the results and times of the crews from the schools that will be racing at the ISR, we would have placed in every event and would have won 3 of them.

The top varsity crews both just missed making their grand finals by about 3 seconds in their repechage row and had to settle for the petite finals. I got some nice video of the WV4, W2ndV4 and WLt4 from the new camera mount and will upload them once they are edited and synced with the audio. Below is a picture of Anna and the WLt4 crew heading out showing the camera mount.  

Below are the results and some additional pix. If anybody has more I'll add them to the blog.