May 22, 2008

Washington, D.C. - This past weekend, both the Georgetown Heavyweight and Lightweight crews took to the water and competed in the Eastern Sprints on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Mass. The Lightweights were able to medal with a second-place finish while the heavyweights continued to show improvement heading into IRA's.

The Hoya Lightweight men took an important step forward as a team with two of three boats making the grand final at the Eastern Sprints. The freshman landed a spot on the medals dock with a second-place finish and the varsity garnered a Petite Final win.

The Varsity had a tough time with the heat, but took command of the Petite Final, winning by open water over a strong Harvard crew. "We did not put together a good race in the morning and that type of performance will not allow a crew to contend for a medal," senior captain Phil Cimbak said. "While I am happy with how we handled the pressure in the afternoon, we didn't assemble a decisive and purposeful race in the heat."

Improving on last year, the Junior Varsity made the final for the first time since 2003 finishing only a boat length out of the medals and a scant .6 seconds off consistently fast Princeton. "Our morning heat gave everyone renewed confidence in our relentless preparation," JV stroke and senior Mike Driscoll commented. "This was my first grand final in four years of collegiate rowing and while we finished out of the medals, I couldn't be more satisfied with our final race."

The high point of the day was the freshman race, where the Hoyas raced to a second-place finish in the Grand Final, earning a silver medal. This was an accomplishment for a Georgetown freshman crew and the best ever performance for Georgetown at the Sprints. "Our result reflects our approach from day one," freshman five-seat Bill Houston said. "The need to improve from stroke to stroke and race to race is stressed constantly on this team. The lessons learned each time we hit the water helped us bring home silver."

"I am really proud of the whole team, the frosh in particular. While I would have preferred a better race from the Varsity in the heat, they responded with aggression and poise in the afternoon," said Head Lightweight Coach Evans Liolin. "We have a very young team and took the long view this year, to properly develop the frosh and sophomores. We worked to build a strong team culture and found broad team improvement. We expect this will lay the groundwork for some fast varsity performances."

"These next three weeks will be crucial for our eight to find consistent speed, which is exactly what we intend to do." senior captain Billy Quirk said. The Varsity's seventh- place finish earned them the right to compete for the National Championship at the IRA Regatta in Camden, N.J. on June 7th.

The Freshman Heavyweights won the third level final, finishing 13th out of 18 crews. The boat consisted of coxswain Victoria Stulgis, stroke K.C. Clark, Evan McGillen, Thomas Graham, Will Keleher, Patrick Opdyke, Matt Lavin, Jack Anderson and Brendan Baumgardner.

""We charged hard off the line in the qualifying heat and pushed out close to two-thirds of a length on Columbia by the thousand, putting us in a decent position to qualify for the petite final," Junior Varsity Heavyweight coach Marc Mandel said. "Columbia rowed a determined second thousand, however, and rowed through us to take fourth. Despite the dissapointment, I was very impressed with our crew's ability to bounce back and win the third final. We were able to row a much stronger second thousand than we have all season and the guys came off the water feeling good about the race."

The Heavyweight Varsity Eight won the third final while the Second Varsity Eight finished 10th overall. The Varsity boat was made up of coxswain Jack Carlson, stroke Paul Keith, Spencer Almy, CJ Mathieu, Andrew Ciriello, Chuck Hartwig, Max O'Neill, Joe Ledvina and bow Taylor Frank. The 2V crew was represented by coxswain Rod Solaimani, stroke Andrew Federer, Ben Coyne, Joe McElwee, Brian Chismar, Tom Skomba, Michael Stack, Max Mickiewicz and bow Bob Morgan.

"Both varsity crews rowed relatively well in the morning session during the heats and felt good about their performances" Head Coach Tony Johnson said. "The teams were comfortable and confident heading into the afternoon. The 2V raced well but we were hindered some by our lane placement but overall, we felt that racing was solid."

The Varsity caught two crabs at the very beginning of the race, large enough that they could have stopped the race," Johnson added. "However, our crew kept going and tried to persevere despite the rough start."

The crews will now have off until IRA's, June 5-7.

"We're looking forward to IRA's so we can go in with a clean slate against the squads we rowed against at Eastern Sprints," Johnson said. "Overall, we have a younger crew that is learning, settling in, progressively getting better and we will look to continue that improvement."