Girls’ Crew Loses Eleven Uppers to ACTs for Opening Regatta, Struggles

This past weekend, Big Red girls’ crew was missing eleven uppers due to the grueling ACTs that were going on during the races. Due to the shortage of athletes, the team had to scratch two boats, leaving the team - G1 and G3 - to enter as a scrimmage.

“We decided to enter as a scrimmage rather than scratch so we could assess the competition and get a day on the water. We had some younger girls really step up to the challenge of a first boat race,” upper and coxswain Ashley Baxter said.

“The first girls’ boat suffered a hard loss in their mixed boat, coming in fifth. A lot of the team was missing at this regatta due to the fact that ACTS were this weekend. The lack of time on the water has been the team’s biggest struggle. Most schools have had about three weeks on the water, whereas ice and snow have kept our team on land until last Friday.”

Senior and captain Zoë Sudduth gave similar comments. “[The] race really gives us no information for the rest of the season, we just wanted to get people out on the course for the experience.”

As Sudduth said, this past weekend’s race, which took place on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, was a great opportunity to let less experienced rowers familiarize themselves with competition and face the challenges of an actual race before the season commences. Although throughout the day temperatures reached 70 degrees, cross winds made many of the races difficult to complete in on that day. “Our coxswains did extremely well steering under the difficult, windy conditions, and despite the fact that most line-ups were made the day before the race, all of the rowers worked very well together,” lower Lena Papadakis said.

Lower Emma Norton said, “The first girls’ boat suffered a hard loss in their mixed boat, coming in fifth. A lot of the team was missing at this regatta due to the fact that ACTS were this weekend. The lack of time on the water has been the team’s biggest struggle. Most schools have had about three weeks on the water, whereas ice and snow have kept our team on land until last Friday.”

However, the results from the weekend do not even come close to how girls’ crew will perform this season. “This Saturday will truly be our first race and the team will be working hard this week in preparation for the tough competition we always see from St. Paul's and Kent,” Sudduth said. The team will be practicing rain or shine for this weekend at St. Paul’s.

Lower Caroline Davis added, “The regatta went pretty well for my boat. We barely lost to Andover by a few seats, but we beat every other school. We had only practiced on the water for seven days before the regatta, and other schools have had water for a few weeks now. We'll keep getting stronger with more practice in the boats instead of just conditioning on land.”

This upcoming weekend will be a much better indicator of how the team fairs among the rest of theleague with more practice time on the water and returning uppers. As this race was really more practice time for the boats to row together, this next Saturday will be the first real race of the season as Exeter takes on its two toughest opponents - Kent and St. Paul’s School.