On Saturday April 14, RE Crew competed at the Florida Scholastic Rowing Association’s State Sculling Championships in Sarasota, FL. With inclement weather shaping up for Sunday, the regatta went to a modified one-day schedule for the entire regatta which put a premium on racing well early in the heat-to-final-only format. RE Crew fielded six sculling crews in the Girls Freshman Double, Boys Freshman Quad, Boys Junior Single, Boys Junior Double, Boys Junior Quad and Girls Varsity Lightweight Double.

 

With a very young team entered into only freshman and junior (no senior rowers) events to build experience and fight for championships, RE advanced three of its six entries into the Grand Finals to race for medals and championships.

 

Highlighting the regatta for RE Crew was the Boys Junior Double of stroke Andres Segrera '19 and bow Will Mathes '19 who, after handily winning their heat, put on a master class in racing from behind to win the Boys Junior Double State Championship and the Boys Junior Double Scholastic Championship. In choppy conditions, they cleanly raced to a close third place position with 400 meters left to go in the 1500-meter race and then poured on the gas to cleanly and aggressively move through two crews into a fast and convincing one-length-plus victory. In winning this championship, this crew earned an invite to the Scholastic Rowing Association of America’s (SRAA) Scholastic National Championship regatta in Pennsauken, N.J., over the Memorial Day weekend. This crew is looking forward to continuing its pursuit of further championships and an additional bid to USRowing Youth Nationals in California later this spring.

 

The Girls Varsity Lightweight Double of stroke Isa Ciocca '20 and bow Ashley Nguyen '20 raced a terrific heat and in the Grand Final placed seventh. As the only scholastic crew in the finals, this very young, but high performing crew earned the coveted title of 2018 Girls Lightweight Double Scholastic State Championship and earned an invite to SRAA Nationals. They are very much looking to move forward to USRowing Southeast Regionals to continue building experience and speed and looking to continue making their mark on the competitive scene.

 

Racing in the Girls Junior Single, Julia Buckner '20, in her very first race in a racing single, put in a well composed heat to advance to the Grand Finals, and in that final placed seventh. Putting oneself out there to race a single is one of the hardest things to do and do well in rowing, and the team looks forward to seeing Julia adding to her experience and results in this category.

 

In the other three races, RE crews rowed very well and, while not advancing out of their heats to the finals, all three showed the excellence of technique and the fight expected in RE Crew.

• The Girls Freshman Double of Alessia Gangone '21 and Fahren Hatami '21 raced strong and cleanly to seventh place in their heat.
• The Boys Freshman Quad of stroke Sebastian Arguello '21, Felipe Campano '21, Matias Silva '21 and Rohit Yavagal '21, having put on a tremendous move in the last 250 meters to put themselves in position to transfer to the finals, ultimately fell short and placed fifth in their heat.
• The Boys Junior Quad of Aston Craft '20, Asher Lieberman '20, Albert Dreiling '20 and bow Jackson Bryan '20 raced in the fastest heat of the event and placed a strong fourth place in their heat.

All three of these crews, while young, show the future of RE Crew is growing brighter. Assistant coaches Caroline Escobar and Paul Elkins helped all of the teams succeed at this event.

 

RE Crew next competes in sweep rowing at the FSRA Sweep State Championships on April 28-29 in Sarasota at Nathan Benderson Park.