After a long winter spent training indoors and a spring break spent on the Potomac, Georgetown rowing is back in competition. In their first regatta of the spring season in Cherry Hill, N.J., both the men and women rowers showed that their off-season work paid off.
On March 18, the Georgetown men’s and women’s crew teams competed at the seventh annual Jesuit Invitational Regatta where they competed against east coast Jesuit schools Boston College, Holy Cross, Loyola (Md.) and St. Joseph’s (Pa.).
The men took first place in every category except the second freshman-eight race where they placed second to St. Joseph’s by 19 seconds.
The men’s varsity team won both the first and second races by five and eight seconds, respectively.
The Hoyas did not easily waltz back into competition, however. Winds gusting upwards of 30 miles per hour and white caps turned the two-kilometer Cooper River course into a challenge for all rowers involved..
St. Joseph’s was on Georgetown’s heels all day, finishing second in the varsity four, freshman light, second varsity four and lightweight eight. The St. Joseph’s men were the only team to disrupt the Hoyas’ otherwise perfect day, taking first in the second freshman eight by a margin of 20 seconds.
The second half of the meet’s standings was occupied by Loyola, Boston College and Holy Cross, who split third through fifth place between them for the day with no team pulling ahead of the other.
The freshman four-man boats took the top two positions in their respective races, beating out the Loyola shell that was the only other boat in the race. The Georgetown boats were only separated by five seconds while Loyola’s team finished 85 seconds off of Georgetown’s fastest pace.
On the women’s side of things, however, the Eagles of Boston College succeeded where the Hoyas could not, taking first in both varsity-eight races and second in the freshman-eight race.
The Georgetown women only managed one quality win on the day in the varsity four by 14 seconds over Holy Cross and 19 seconds over the Boston College “B” team.
The Hoyas also took first in the lightweight eight race, finishing ahead of St. Joseph’s, the only other competitor, by 23 seconds.
St. Jospeph’s won a close freshman eight race, finishing just more than three seconds ahead of Boston College’s shell. Overall, first and last place were only separated by 21 seconds, a small margin in the four team race.
The Jesuit Invitational is the first race for either team since the Belly of the Carnegie regatta in Princeton, N.J., where Georgetown placed seventh, seven minutes behind winners Harvard and Radcliffe.
At the Carnegie, the Hoyas faced much stiffer competition against traditional rowing powers like Harvard, Yale and Navy.
Against its Jesuit brethren, however, Georgetown has proven itself the cream of the crop with a convincing performance against its peer institutions.
The men’s heavyweights next travel to Cornell while the lightweights will next row at Princeton. Both regattas are scheduled for April 1. The women’s heavyweights will row next in Raleigh at the University of North Carolina on March 25.
