Sunday, April 29, 2012

EVSRA Championships

The school reached a significant new level with the performance at today's EVSRA Championship regatta.  With the Men's Varsity 8 winning the silver medal we have made a statement to all that we can compete at the highest level in the conference. In past years seldom did any crew make it out of the heats; this year almost all of our crews did so.

Below are the two videos and the score sheet, with commentary to follow in the near term.



 
 
Below is the score sheet for overall points (for the Thompson Cup).  Schools earned points for their six highest event finishes. The highest scoring sweep events are the varsity 8s, the lowest scoring sweep events are the novice 4s. Our three high point events were the MV8 silver, the WV8 5th place, and the W2V4 bronze (75, 30 and 25 points respectively.)

Also note the Sunday paper sports results reproduced below. Our mention in the MV8 Grand Finals is significant as the MV8 is the traditional marquee event in any rowing regatta.



Sunday, April 22, 2012

Spring Fling II Regatta


Below are the results of yesterday's regatta and four of the videos shot of the racing. Congrats to the WV8 with their first win of the season. Also I can note that y'all clean up pretty well after getting off the water!

Below is the Men's Novice 4 event with Will coxing. The waterproof back to the camera housing  has been removed allowing some audio to be discernible. It's interesting hearing the starter's polling and the coxswain's calls.  Obviously the crew still needs to work on timing and solid oar placement. Perhaps a slightly lower stroke rate would have helped.

Below is the MV8 heat race. A 4th place finish in a very fast heat (If the crew was in heat B they would have won by over 18 seconds. This just goes to show that for next week's regatta we are hoping for a favorable heat placement so we can get out of the heats to the finals.

Below is the WN4 race. The girls got off to a very solid start, and are rowing extremely well balanced on their way to a run away heat win. That is, until the monster crab in the bow seat at the 1:28 mark of the video. Looking at various videos of Synchronicity with other crews rowing this boat, it does appear the pitch of the oarlock on the bow rigger is too shallow, leading to the tendency to catch a crab. Some pitch adjustment is in order! Even so, after completely stopping the boat, this crew managed to catch and pass both First Colonial and Norfolk Collegiate to finish 2nd. There's a lot of potential with the crew!


Lastly we have below the W2V4, heat B race, with Anna coxing and Reagan stroking. A 2nd place finish just 2.6 seconds out of first, but still almost 15 seconds off the pace of the other W2V4 crew in heat A. One item of note is Anna's squeaking at the end. Was the cox box amplification  not working?


Overall both coach O'Brien and I are well pleased. We're still working toward the EVSRA champs next week and the Independent School Championships in two weeks. We've decided in order to get as many athletes competing as possible, we'll enter the following events (remember, no double rowing is allowed at the EVSRA champs): MV8, MV4, MN4, WV8, WV4, W2V4, WN8, then a mixed event to get everybody else on the water. As of now the only person that I know who cannot attend the EVSRA champs is Juan.