April 17, 2010
Mercer Lake Sprints
Mercer County, NJ

On a cold and windy day, 98 YHS athletes braved the choppy waters of 
Lake Mercer to test their fitness and skill versus some of the top 
high school, prep school, and club crews in the Mid-Atlantic and Mid-
West regions.

Leading off for Yorktown was the Women's 1V in a very tough heat 
stacked with a composite crew of junior national teamers, rowing as 
Southern Connecticut RC as well as fine crews from Merion Mercy 
Academy of Pennsylvania and our own VASRA competitors, Robinson High 
School.  Our gals came up just short of qualifying, 2 seconds behind 
Robinson.

Next up came the Varsity Men's 1V8.  After watching crews from the 
Lawrenceville School of New Jersey and the Salisbury School of 
Connecticut, both 100+ year old boarding schools who run year-round 
rowing programs, finish 1-2 in the first heat, the Patriot men 
qualified in second place in the second heat behind the host crew, 
Mercer Junior Rowing Club, another all-year program based on Lake 
Mercer.  Robinson was the third qualifier, 10 seconds back of YHS.

The next period of racing was a series of fours events.  Most of the 
YHS crews entered here had rarely if ever rowed together in fours, but 
braved the choppy waters for the experience of racing the course and 
to get ready for the eights events later in the day.

Here is the summary of events and results:

Women's 2nd 4s:  YHS placed fourth in the first flight, behind fine 
crews from the Hun School of New Jersey and Mount St Joseph Academy of 
Pennsylvania, but medalled in the third flight finishing a strong 
second to a National Team crew from CT.
Women's 3rd 4s:   YHS struggled through in 6th in a tougher than 
expected field.
Men's 2nd 4s:   YHS's top entry in this event was involved in a 
collision with another crew off the start and gave up over 10 seconds 
on the rest of the field, but rowed back into the race and finished 
fourth.  YHS's B entry hammered through the rough water to 6th place 
finish in a tough flight won by Kearny High School of New Jersey.
Men's 3rd 4s:   YHS Medalled here, finishing third, half a second out of
second, behind Upper Arlington HS of Columbus, OH and the Hun School 
of NJ.
Men's & Women's Light 4s:  Both of our entries here were in a super 
tough category up against several teams of top rowers and finished well 
back from the leaders.

None of our strong Novice Crews got to race as the race officials 
closed the course to Novice events due to wind conditions.

The winds did not die down for the afternoon racing, but the show went 
on for the Varsity 8s.

In the Women's 3V eights the two YHS entries were well back of the top 
crew, again from Mount Saint Joseph's.  The previously unbeaten Men's 
3V rowed a tough race and sprinted through the crew ahead of them in 
the last 5 strokes to finish fourth, two seconds out of the medals, 
behind, Nutley, Mercer and Robinson.  Congrats to Robinson for rowing 
a solid race in tough conditions.

In the Women's 2nd 8, the Patriot women got solidly on the board with 
a strong bronze medal performance, trailing a crew from Mount St Joes 
in first, but 20 seconds up on a local crew from Walt Whitman HS, in 
Maryland.

In the Men's 2nd 8, the Patriot men were in the middle of a tough 
fight with crews from Upper Arlington, Salisbury and Robinson for the 
three medal positions when with about 500 to go they struck the 
remnants of a broken oar left over from some previous collision, that 
happened to float into their lane.  The impact sheared off their skeg 
and rudder and the boat veered out of control, across two lanes and 
off the course.  The coxswain eventually got the boat under control 
via differential rowing by the oarsmen and the crew did eventually 
limp across the line.

In the final race of the day for Yorktown, the Men's 1V rowed a 
courageous race out in the wind in lane 5 and fought it out for 2000 
meters with Salisbury, Lawrenceville, and Mercer.  Salisbury in lane 2 
sprinted from the pack in the last 250 to win, followed in close 
succession by Mercer, Lawrenceville and Yorktown, all four crews 
overlapped with each other at the finish.  The rest of the pack was 
over 18 seconds back. YHS for the second year in a row misses a medal 
by 1 second.