After competing out of state for their previous two regattas, the Johns Hopkins crew team stayed in Baltimore on April 15 to host the JHU Invitational. University President William Brody, Athletic Director Thomas Calder and Executive Assistant to the President Jerome Schyndman were all in attendance to accept new boats being dedicated in their name.
The Invitational was more than twice as large as last year's, thanks to the extensive promotional efforts of coach Steve Perry. The Blue Jays were met with moderate success in the races, particularly on the women's side, which highlighted the event for the home team with a first place finish in the varsity four race.
The women's varsity four was dominant from start to finish, taking first in their heat as well as in the final. The Jays beat runner-up Loyola by a comfortable seven seconds to take gold on their home course.
Women's captain Angel Ko was proud of her team and is pleased with its overall direction. "This is the second time we've raced the four and it is the second gold medal that we've won," Ko said. "For the last few championship races, including the Atlantic Collegiate League Sprints, the Mid-Atlantics, and the Dad Vail, the team will transition away from the eight, and the four will become the [more] competitive boat."
As for the other women's teams, the varsity eight finished fourth, the novice four ended up with a third place finish, and the Women's Pair placed a distant second to a powerful Stockton boat.
Ko was also quick to praise the competitive mind-set the girls had displayed up to this point in the season. "When you're waking up at 4:30 a.m. every morning, exerting physical [effort] out in the cold, it becomes really hard on your body. But by this time of year, we've already adapted to the physical demands of crew and now it's all just a mental game."
But sometimes even being mentally prepared can't overcome game day flukes. The men's pair team of Lukasz Bugaj and Pete Ryan will attest to that, as their boat came in less than a second after rival Loyola.
"We really should have won that race," team captain Bagaj said. "We jumped out ahead from the start and were rowing strong, but at about the 1200 meter mark our boat and Loyola's boat steered into each other and we clashed oars. This allowed Loyola to take the lead and we weren't able to subsequently regain it. The results will say [differently], but I'm confident that we were the stronger boat that day."
The tough loss to Loyola in the pair's final became, unfortunately, a trend for the rest of the day as Loyola narrowly defeated the in the men's varsity eight final.
"We knew it would be a dogfight between us and Loyola; they're a very fast crew," Bugaj said. "We closed the gap on them at the Invitational, the five second margin between us is the closest we've come to them this season, but in the end they pulled away from us. We came away feeling pretty good, every rower was definitely rowing his hardest and we rowed a very strong race. Unfortunately, Loyola was better than us on that day. Though we wanted the gold badly, we did feel good about coming in a strong second on top of some other fast crews. "
Co-captain Wesley Fredericks had similar sentiments to Bugaj. "We'd been aiming for the gold at the JHU Invitational and were disappointed about the second place finish," he said. "It wasn't our best race of the season [but] we stuck to our plan and had a solid performance."
As for the novices, both the eight and the four finished a respectable third in the finals. Because of the single day schedule, some of the novice rowers found themselves participating in four races in a two-hour span. "That's almost a feat in itself," said Bugaj. Fredericks was also proud of the novice squads and praised their steady improvement over the course of the season.
Next up for Hopkins crew is the Atlantic Collegiate League Sprints this weekend in York, Penn. Both teams will use the sprints as a barometer for what they will be up against at the season ending Dad Vail Regatta. The Hopkins men have already handily beaten most of the other boats that will be at the Sprints and, in the eyes of the Jays, the men's eight should come down to personal performances and a dangerous Ithaca boat against whom they haven't yet raced this year.
"Unfortunately, we lost some important practice time last week because of illnesses," Fredericks said. "We're working hard to make up for lost time this week. We're aiming for a first place finish at the Atlantic Collegiate League Sprints this weekend, but it will be a challenge. Ithaca has a strong crew, so it will definitely be a close and grueling race. We're looking forward to it."
Even though both teams have suffered through some tough times, the remainder of the season looks promising
