Rochester Wins Lightweight 8+ at Head of the Schuylkill

UR Crew travelled to Philadelphia this week for the Head of the Schuylkill, dodging some bad weather to race with over 600 boats, emerging with a gold in the Lightweight 8+ and medaling in several other events.

The Lightweight 8+ (from bow: Brian Hughes, Matt Ma, Henry Druschel, Rob Dowd, Joe Prosack, Greg McKiernan, Will Horn, Ross Pedersen, Eric Demeo (cos)), racing against the University of Pennsylvania and Duke, finished a full minute ahead of the second-place boat with a 13:14.09. The other 8+ (Jeremy Warner, James Taylor, Daniel Salazar, Jared Freedman, Bill Li, Eli Robbins, Tyler Gomez, Jonathan Rex, Ellen Boland (cox)) racing in the Men’s Open Club category also did well, pulling a 13:23.94, 30 seconds off the winner and good for fifth place.

Two more varsity boats raced, with the Men’s Open 4+ (Ben Feifke, Tyler Gomez, Bill Li, Jonathan Rex, Brett Chenoweth (cox)) getting 8^th in a field of 42 boats with a 14:45.31, and the Men’s Open 2- (Joe Prosack, Ross Pedersen) pulling  a 15:26.91 and earning a bronze medal in third place. “There were actually three boats that went down the course faster than us,” noted Prosack, “but one of them cut through 10 buoys. I don’t think this is succeeding on a technicality, though – steering is hard, and it’s a big part of the race, so I’m glad we were rewarded for rowing well and steering well.”

The Men’s Novice squad also travelled to Philadelphia for their first race outside the home course on the Genesee, and put up impressive results. The Novice 4+ (K.C. Gordon, Keith McCutchan, Rigel Goheen, Colin Bowen, Johnson Truong (cox)) crossed the line in 15:30.94, good for 2^nd and a silver medal in a field of 18, and the Novice 8+ (Adam Langenbucher, Jonathan Curtis, Aaron Mason, Sean Garrison, David Mullin, Zach Dean, Rigel Goheen, Colin Bowen, Johnson Truong (cox)) pulled a 14:48.78 to get 15^th in a field of 29.

This weekend, the team heads down to the Cooper River in Camden, NJ, for their last race of the fall season, a 2000m sprint at the Braxton Regatta, and will try to put up one more good set of results before winter training.