Loyola Greyhound

Issue date: 4/1/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Cherith Greenwood The women's Varsity Four finished fifth overall with a time of 7:42.36.

By Dan Keenan
Opinions Editor


The Loyola crew team opened their racing season Saturday with strong finishes from their smaller boats. They competed in the Murphy Cup Regatta on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, Pa., against big-name schools from around the region. It was a cold and windy 2,000-meter race, some traveling from as far north as Massachusetts and from as far south as central Florida.

The Greyhounds, coached by Al Ramirez, Cherith Greenwood and William Farrell, fielded seven boats, four four-person boats and three eight-person boats. Coming off of a long, indoor winter-training season and ending with a spring break training trip to Georgia, the Greyhounds were looking to start off the season on a high note.

"Our goal for this race was to put everyone in a boat so that we could evaluate how our rowers would react under the strain and stress of racing," Ramirez said.

Initial results looked promising for the team. "We had two of our four-fours [four-person boats] advance to the finals," Ramirez said. "And although younger women team members in the women's ["B" Four] boat did not advance today, they showed and put together a strong race."

The women's Varsity Four "A" boat, rowed by Nikki Yaeger, Kelly McDermott, Meghan Fregeau, Daisy Carter and coxed by Christine Drennan, finished first in their heat with a time of 7:42.36 and finished strong in the Grand Final (fifth overall).

The men's Varsity Four narrowly missed first place to Fairfield's boat by 1.94 seconds, but their time of 7:02.16 still qualified them for the Grand Final -- rowing against Penn State's "A" and "B", Fairfield and Philadelphia University -- where they finished fifth overall as well. The Hounds were coxed by Genevieve Dalton, and the rowers were Thomas Bellew, Marc Hesse, Majiej Owsianni and Travis O'Neill.

Rowers in the men's Varsity Eight matched up against Bucknell, Temple, Delaware's "A" boat and Penn State in their heat. With a time of 6:08.61, the Hounds advanced to the Petit Finals in the late evening, finishing fourth overall.

"The men rowed fairly well, but were not able to make up the lead they gave up to Bucknell and Delaware in the first 800 meters," Ramirez said. "But they held steady for the rest of the race."

The men's Novice Four and the men's Junior Varsity Eight, consisting of newcomers and rowers recovering from injuries, both displayed strong finishes in their heats, but did not advance.

"Both the JV and Varsity men's eights have not been able to practice completely together for the past 10 days or so because of the illness of two rowers and the Easter holiday," Ramirez said. "But we tested new lineups."

The rowing team will have a chance to improve and build off of this past weekend as they compete in the Johns Hopkins Invitational, their only home regatta this season, on Saturday, April 5, at the boathouse in Baltimore.

"The men, as a whole, showed a lot of promise," said an optimistic Ramirez. "We are going to have to find the right combo for our women's races, and both the JV and Varsity men are still going to need work for our upcoming competitions."

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools