Erin Jeter '18

At the 80th Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia PA Bowdoin entered 7 crews in 5 events and earned medals in 4 of them, including the gold in the Women’s JV Four, ahead of Drexel and Florida Institute of Technology. The Women’s Varsity Four took silver 3 seconds behind Florida Tech and 3 seconds ahead of Drexel. The Men’s Varsity Four won the bronze by a bow ball over Milwaukee School of Engineering and behind winner Lafayette, with Stetson University in second. And the Men’s JV Four flew to a silver behind Drexel and just ahead of Colgate.

Coaches Birney and Welling were ecstatic.
“We are just  so proud of this team,” Birney said.
“To advance to the Grand Finals at Dad Vail is a significant accomplishment; to earn medals is huge.  To win gold is off the charts. But to have four crews in that mix is out of this world!”

The B entry in the Women’s JV Four won the Petite Final, while the B entry in the Men’s JV Four came fifth. Men’s Novice Four won the Third Final.

After 22 years, this was Birney’s last Regatta as Head Coach for the Rowing Team. “I could not have asked for a better ending to the story,” he said. “All our crews had really scrappy, close finishes with really talented competition. To do so well on this national level of racing is a tribute to our athletes and a great gift to this retiring coach. I am profoundly grateful to them.”

Racing schedule/heat sheets have been posted for Saturday’s New England Rowing Championships! Please find the schedule at the following link:

http://www.qra.org/nerc/pdf/NERC_Lanes.pdf

Hope to see many of you out cheering us on in Worchester on Saturday!

The team had another successful weekend of racing on April 21-22 at the Riverhawk Challenge on Saturday (Lowell, MA) and the President’s Cup on Sunday (Greene, Maine). At Riverhawk, we brought home an impressive number of medals, with almost every crew winning either 1st or 2nd place! On Sunday against Bates and Colby the Women’s Varsity 4 came in 1st by 53 seconds bringing the President’s Cup back to Brunswick and all other crews performed well against the high level of competition. It is always a great experience getting to race against our fellow Maine NESCAC schools!

We look ahead with high hopes for the New England Rowing Championships this coming Saturday, May 5th (Worchester, MA). Heat sheets/start times have yet to be released, but we will post them as soon as they are available. The racing will be streamed online by following these steps:

Live Stream Information for NERC:

1. Go To locallive.tv
2. Click on “Channels” (top right of page)
3. Select US Rowing from the list and Click Subscribe
4. Set-up free account and password.

 

Here is Head Coach Gil Birney with highlights from our weekend at Knecht Cup in West Windsor, New Jersey:

“Saturday was quite warm and relatively still until the end of the day, and with high winds predicted for Sunday the Race Committee rearranged the schedule to get in as much racing as possible ahead of the weather… so the 4 crews who left campus Saturday morning thinking they were only racing on Sunday were surprised to learn their events had been moved up a day!…we managed to get them all launched in time for their events which was a bit of a miracle, but it worked.

And the results were impressive!

In the morning heats, the First Novice Men advanced to the finals behind Carnegie Mellon, while the Second Novice Men were just .2 behind Penn State for a 5^th in the heat, but did not advance…

In the Men’s Varsity Four Div. 2/3, both our crews won their heats to advance to afternoon finals…

In those finals, the Novice Men won the gold, ahead of Carnegie Mellon, UConn, UNH, Villanova, UConn B and George Mason…and the Varsity Men finished gold and silver besting Wentworth, CMU, Stockton, Franklin and Marshall, and US Merchant Marine…

And the rescheduled crews all rose to the occasion as well…

the M2V won the silver behind George Mason and ahead of Rhode Island, Franklin and Marshall and UConn

and in the Women’s Varsity D3 event, we took gold and silver, ahead of Franklin and Marshall, CMU, and North Park, with our third entry in 6^th  and ahead of The College of New Jersey, after a very exciting, chaotic start into the rising wind in the last event of the day…

that wind built through the night, and though we launched our Men’s Varsity 8 D2/3,  the Committee called them off the water and cancelled all Sunday racing  for safety’s sake… it was a good call… and the men landed safely, proclaiming  they remained undefeated on the day!

Thanks to all you supporters who faced the changing schedule and launches with your usual good humor and patience…

Looking ahead, we have racing next Saturday in Lowell for the Riverhawk Challenge, and Sunday in Greene for The President’s Cup with Bates and Colby…we’ll get those details out as soon as we have them!…”