On Friday, the Girl's Freshman Eight raced beautifully in their heat and finished 2nd (three to advance to semi's), the Girl's Varsity Eight also had a solid race and for the first time advanced directly to semi's by finishing 2nd in their heat (places 3 and 4 go to reps later that day and the top 2 from reps go to semi's). The Girl's 2nd Eight had a tough heat (with an unseeded Robinson crew that ended up advancing to finals!) They had a terrific final race!
On Saturday, the freshman girls knew they were going to have to beat a crew they weren't 'supposed' to beat.....and they raced super hard - finishing 5th in their semi but overlapping two other boats fighting for that last spot in the final ~~ probably the best experience ever! The girls finished 9th overall (not too shabby~~). The 1V was up next with the two fastest boats in their semi (who ended up going 1 and 2 in the grand final). The goal was to stay ahead of the TJ (which has taken the YHS girls by a few seconds each race)...it worked, the 1V finished 3 seconds ahead of TJ and were 'connected' to the front two boats (finishing 3rd in their semi) - this amazing race sent them to petite finals.
In the petite finals, the bronze medalists from Stotesbury were angry they were knocked out of the grand finals by TC Williams in another semi and came out with a vengeance! The Winter Park girls claimed the Petite final victory and Thomas Jefferson and Yorktown once again battled down the course for second and third with Holy Spirit and Absegami hot on their tails. The finish of the petite final was 5 boats overlapping - this is what racing is all about! Rowing really is about inches. The Yorktown girls had a great race, finished 3rd in the petite finals which placed them 9th overall and finished 2 seconds ahead of the TC's boat time in the grand final. Most results can be found at
http://www.sraa.net/The Yorktown Crew Men's Freshman Eight arrived at the Cooper River in Camden, NJ on Thursday, focused and knowing that they would have a challenging qualifying heat ahead of them on Friday. The crew rigged their boat and immediately launched to get in a last practice session before their qualifying race. The crew rowed over the course a first time, familiarizing themselves with the course, then turned around and did a second row over, this time walking through their race plan, rowing the start, middle, and sprint at full pressure and the rest of the piece hard but below race pace. The crew returned to the dock after their practice session pleased with the practice and looking forward to racing the next morning.
The crew left the hotel early Friday morning, along with the freshman women's 8, to prepare for their race. Coach Steve affixed a pink bowball to the '98, fulfilling a request made by the Freshman Men after their silver medal performance at the Ted Phoenix Lower Boat Championships. In their pre-race meeting, Coach Steve assessed the competition: LaSalle had finished 3rd at Stotesbury; Manhasset and Bonner had both been faster in time trials at Stotesbury; Upper Arlington in Lane 5 was a relative unknown. Only two crews would advance to the semifinals later that afternoon. The team knew that they would need to start fast and row the race of their young careers to stay with the field and possibly advance. The team finalized its race plan and prepared to launch.
Winds were light and the water smooth as the crew launched and prepared for their race. Yorktown would row in Lane 1, with Manhasset in 2, LaSalle in 3, Bonner in 4, and Upper Arlington in 5. At the start, LaSalle took a small lead with the rest of the field only a couple of seats back. Following Coach Steve's race plan, Yorktown took an extra 10 high strokes at the start to try to make an early move on the field. The move kept the crew close to LaSalle and the rest of the field, but did not gain the seats hoped. By the midway point, LaSalle had begun to build on its lead, with Manhasset and Upper Arlington staying close with Yorktown and Bonner trailing slightly. As the crews crossed the 1200 m point, the stronger crews pulled further away. Yorktown's Freshman 8 having rowed a fast race to this point, began to fade. At the finish, it was LaSalle, Manhasset, Upper Arlington, with Yorktown finishing last. The young men of Yorktown had rowed a valiant race but come up short against stronger crews. Their racing done for the weekend, the crew was still pleased with the way they rowed and were already beginning to plan their future return to racing at this level.