Dueling Over A Grand 1

12 April 2014Tara C, Allard ’14 Captain of Rowing, Photos by Mark Wismer

This past weekend rowers from the junior boys’, senior girls’ and masters’ programs travelled to Elk Lake in Victoria to compete in the first regatta of the spring season: Dueling Over a Grand. This regatta is run differently than most with each race featuring only two boats and over a mere 1000 meters of water, leaving much less time to determine the winner than a standard rowing race. Upon losing twice a crew is eliminated. By Sunday afternoon, only two crews remain in each category and the final battle is set. When we arrived at the course Saturday, it was a pleasant surprise to see clear skies and flat water, a rare combination for Elk Lake. Our rowers fought hard through their first duel of the weekend; however only the masters and junior boys were able to fight off their competition on their first trip down the course. The boys and masters continued to plow down the completion, setting them up for a good shot at the finals and only a couple of races on Sunday. The girls’ singles, double and quad would have to wait until Sunday to work through the competition boat by boat in hopes of making finals. Sunday morning arrived with even better conditions than Saturday. As the early spring sun shone down on the 1000m course, Brentwood rowers prepared their boats for a race-filled day. Unfortunately, both the women’s singles and double were eliminated early in the day. These crews, however, saw huge improvements over the course of the weekend. Meanwhile the junior boys, senior girls and master’s quads managed to qualify for their respective finals. The junior boys’ race kicked off the finals, signaling the end to a long weekend of preliminary racing. The senior girls weren’t long after them. Having raced all day to earn their spot in the finals, legs were tired and hands were sore going into the final. In hard fought battles, both the junior boys and senior women’s quad won silver medals in their respective events, a great start to the season for both programs. The mixed masters 4x were victorious over their rival crews, earning a gold medal. Dueling Over a Grand marks the beginning of the spring season for Brentwood’s rowing program and was an excellent way to kick off an intense two months of training and competing, and lit a fire in our competitive spirits as we rapidly approach the Brentwood Regatta in a few short weeks. See you there! Tara C, Allard ’14 Captain of Rowing

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