Sunday was our last race of the season, eastern sprints, 12 Ivy Caliber schools competing to see who is the fastest in the leauge. This was Delawares third invite to the race and we were hoping to continue to prove that we deserve to be there.
The day did not get off to a good start. The first heat was our 1st Novice Eight. We heard the announcer say that they were leading the pack for the first 500m. Then as time went on, and their rate didn't go down, we knew that they couldn't hold it. Sure enough as they are coming down by the finish area, they are well behind in last place. Next was our heat. We figured we had a really good shot of knocking out Penn (who we lost to by one one-hundreth of a second the week before.) We just had to go after Princeton and Rutgers to make our final. The race starts okay, we were up, but we quickly lost it to everyone buy Penn. We hung with Penn for most of the race, but they just kept taking those inches and walked away by the end of the whole thing. We finished in last place. Not according to plan.
We come off the water and everyone is noticibly diappointed. We came here to prove something, and it just wasn't happening. We regroup and our coach comes over to tell us that we need to make up for it in our petite final. So we go and rest up for a few hours.
The Varsity race came down next, and they too were in last place. Not one of our boats made the grand final. We were all going into our petites in last place.
As the day goes on, the weather keeps changing. At some points its really hot, at others its really cold and there are huge gusts of wind. Sure enough, as we a launching to start our final it starts to rain on us. The rain continues as we go up to the line and get attached to the stake boats. Nothing like sitting there in an uncomfortable position waiting for them to start the race in the rain. The offical makes an announcement that it looks like everyone is ready, but our race still isn't for another few minutes. "If no one has objections, we can start early... Are there any objections?" ::I look around with a look on my face like, "If you delay this I am going to hunt you down...":: No one objects, and we are on our way. Once again, four boats quickly pull out and we are left behind with Columbia. This was another school that only a few weeks prior we lost to by less than half a second. They pulled away in the 2nd thousand and we finished last in our petites. So did our Varsity.
An all around horrible day. Holy Cross, a school we absolutely destoryed two months ago came back and took it from us. It just shows you the nature of the game. They had it and kept working for it. We had it and lost it.
Not the way I wanted my last season, and last race to go down. I really would have liked to accomplish our goals this semester. We've been trying hard for three years now, and it would be nice to see some of the fruits of our labor. The coaches said we were the fastest crew's Delaware has had, the only problem was they other schools have the fastests crews they have ever had. And they are faster than us, by a lot.
Of course, at the end of the races the coaches did their usual, "heres what we have to do differently next year..." It's a hard point to be at. You don't know what you can change, and you don't know the dynamics of the whole thing until your there... you just know you need guys to come back in shape. Our biggest problem is size. We are by far the smallest team. Not in numbers, but in body size. Our guys are so much smaller than the rest of the schools. Their guys are huge, and they cut massive amounts of weight to make their boats. Our team dosn't have a problem with weight, and thats a problem. We need to attract larger people.
Right after the Varsity race, it started to get really nasty outside again. This time the wind gusts were stronger, and hail started to fall. It was crazy, at that point we just got into our van and started the long drive home.
The Boat:
C) Katie "Fred" Goffredi
8) Pete Atlee
7) Pete Bundy
6) Andrew Madden
5) Matt Hood
4) Ivan "Cira" Mikic
3) Christopher Brito
2) Joel Reiner
B) John Leitz
+ These guys who were in and out all season:
Glen Catlin
Dan Hagelberg
Nick DePompeo
You may only be the road that connects New Jersey to Maryland, but you've been so much more than that over the years. Riding on you just about every day to get to practice was always fun (there are never any cops, who can speed when theres traffic.) No matter what direction, coming back your always congested for no real reason. I'll always remember how it took an hour to go five miles (particularly on Sunday afternoons.)
I'm going to miss those late nights sitting in you and eating two eggs scrambled, with cheese, white toast and french fries. Oh how I loved your french fries...
