The Georgetown University men’s rowing team faced strong competition from the Ivy League and international opponents last weekend at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, finishing in the bottom half of all of their races.
The team brought two entirely freshman boats, a lightweight four and a heavyweight four, as well as a third lightweight eights boat composed of returners.
The lightweight eights finished 10th out of 17 and 13th out of 16, respectively. The heavyweight four finished 16th out of 19 in Sunday’s race, but the team was not entirely focused on results.
Head Coach Luke Agnini said he is focused on developing the young rowers and noted that other teams across the country have rowers with more experience before college.
“Typically those teams tend to show a little bit better early in the year, and I think things average out by the end of the year,” Coach Agnini said. “I think the most important thing was that they were in probably one of the hardest events at the regatta. Just having them be exposed to the level of competition out there in college was important. If we develop properly, in a couple years we can go out and win this event.”
Agnini said he is focused on keeping his rowers healthy, with two of the four heavyweight rowers coming down with an illness this week.
Lightweight Varsity Coach Lee Rumpf praised the performance of the lightweight fours.
“Getting 6th out of college boats is great. In [past] years we’ve taken varsity fours to the Charles, and they’ve gotten third and fourth respectively. That’s exactly what we’re looking to build off of,” Rumpf said. “For all freshmen, they did really well.”
In the Hoyas’ final race of the day, the lightweight eights got into trouble when, toward the conclusion of the race, one of the rower’s oars hit a buoy and stopped the boat for a short period of time. They finished in 13th place.
Although the incident hurt the team’s finish, Rumpf said he thought this was this crew’s best race. The lightweight eights, situated between two international boats from Turkey and Canada at the start, responded well to the high level of competition.
Rumpf was pleased that the Georgetown boat had closely followed the Turkish boat through the course. “I thought that that was actually the best piece that that combination of guys has had this year so far,” Rumpf said.
This weekend, the Hoyas will be racing at the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta and the Princeton 3-Mile Chase. Georgetown will be competing in the freshman eights at the Princeton Chase.
“The Princeton Chase is one of the only truly freshman races left in the country,” Rumpf said. “A lot of their work is going to be shown this weekend.”
Agnini has a simple plan for the weekend.
“Win. There is no other plan,” Agnini said.
The Princeton Chase is Sunday Oct. 29th in Princeton, N.J.
