Photo Courtesy of UR Athletics
This past Saturday, the women’s varsity and men’s club rowing teams headed to Philadelphia, PA to compete in the 44th-annual Head of the Schuykill. The ‘Jackets left Rochester at 2 p.m. Friday afternoon and came home tired Saturday night after competing against many major rival Division III teams, along with a number of Division I teams.
This race marked the first away regatta for the novice teams—they had their inaugural race last weekend on the Genesee River home course—and both teams showed a lot of excitement for traveling.
“I got to go back to my home state, which was awesome, and the experience was so great,” freshman novice rower Colleen Stone said. “It was really great team bonding.”
The course itself was about 4000 meters, much shorter than the course of the Oct. 4 Head of the Genesee and other similar regattas.
A fall race is normally about 5000 meters, and many rowers felt that the shorter distance meant that the teams were able to push their limits and see how they ranked against other schools.
“The race was painful, but getting to walk two boats during the race after the halfway point was so great,” said freshman novice rower Josephine Foong. The novice women’s eight-plus came in 12th out of 41 teams, holding off the 13th place holder, Lafayette College, by over 13 seconds. They came in fourth out of the Division III schools, but managed to beat teams like University of Connecticut, Trinity College and University of Pennsylvania.
“Getting our results, we came in as the first Division III team,” sophomore rower Becca Fuchs said. “It felt really good to come in a solid placement against teams like [University of Connecticut and University of Pennsylvania], especially knowing that those teams are Division I.”
The Women’s 1V and 2V eights raced against teams such as the University of Pennsylvania, Fordham University, Temple University and Drexel University. The teams came in ninth and 32nd, respectively. The 1V team came in ninth only 0.2 seconds behind the University of Pittsburgh and behind Drexel University’s B boat by 1.2 seconds. The four boat also did well, with the A boat coming in seventh behind teams like Princeton and University of Pennsylvania.
The men’s boats had exceptional performances in the regatta as well. The 1V eight came in 10th, four seconds ahead of the University of Pittsburgh’s B Boat. The four’s A and B boats came in 21st and 35th, respectively, racing against teams like St. Joseph’s University, University of Pennsylvania and Loyola University Maryland.
The men’s novice eight plus came in 18th out of 38 teams, beating out all but two Division III teams. They beat teams such as Hamilton College, Catholic University and Duke University, and they managed to hold solid placement over the course of the race.
UR rowing teams will compete at the Head of the Fish in Saratoga Springs, New York on Oct. 31 at 10 a.m.
Miller is a member of the class of 2019.
